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f b„c? 









































AUNT PATTY 



Aunt Patty’s 


SCRAPrB AG. 


BY 


/ 

Mbs. CAROLINE LEE HENTZ. 

M- 

AUTHOR OF “LINDA,” “MARCUS WARLAND,” “PLANTER’S NORTHERN BRIDE,” 
“ LOST DAUGHTER,” “ RENA,” “ ROBERT GRAHAM,” “ BANISHED SON,” 

“ ERNEST LINWOOD,” “ COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE,” “ EOLINE,” 

“ LOVE AFTER MARRIAGE,” “ HELEN AND ARTHUR,” ETC. 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY D ALLEY. 


\ 


PHILADELPHIA: 

T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS; 

306 CHESTNUT STREET. 


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by 


T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, 


In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D.C. 



MRS. CAROLINE LEE HENTZ’S WORKS. 

Each Work is complete in one large duodecimo volume. 

LINDA; OR, THE YOUNG PILOT OF THE BELLE CREOLE. 

ROBERT GRAHAM. A SEQUEL TO “ LINDA! 

RENA; OR, THE SNOW BIRD. A TALE OF REAL LIFE. 

EOLINE; OR, MAGNOLIA VALE; OR, THE HEIRESS OF GLEN- 
MORE. 

MARCUS WARLAND; OR, THE LONG MOSS SPRING. 

ERNEST LINWOOD; OR, THE INNER LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 

THE PLANTER'S NORTHERN BRIDE; OR, SCENES IN MRS. 
HENTZ’S CHILDHOOD. 

HELEN AND ARTHUR; OR, MISS THUSA’S SPINNING- WHEEL. 

COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE ; OR, THE JOYS AND SORROWS 
OF AMERICAN LIFE. 

< 

LOVE AFTER MARRIAGE. \ 

THE LOST DA UGHTER. 

THE BANISHED SON. 

Price $1.75 each in Morocco Cloth, or $1.50 in paper cover. 


Above books are for sale by all Booksellers. Copies of any or all of tjie 
above books will be sent to any one, to any place, postage pre-paid, on receipt 
of their price by the Publishers, 

T. 13. PETERSON & BROTHERS, 

306 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 


X 


LIST OF ILLUSTKATIONS. 

* 


PAGE 

Aunt Patty Frontispiece. 

Bossy, Frank, Laura and Edmund pay a visit to Madame le Grande, 
where they see Victorine, surrounded hy a French menagerie. 
“Yet beneath this disgusting exterior, Madame le Grande 
carried the native graces of a Frenchwoman, and invited her 
young guests to enter” 90 

Bessy and Laura in Vivian's studio. “Oh, what a beautiful pic- 
ture!” exclaimed Laura, when Bessy carried her into Vivian's 
studio 163 

Victorine reading to Lady Graves and Lady Paine. “Between 
them was seated Victorine, who looked like a bright flower 
springing up amid Alpine snows ” 191 

Bossy and Victorine drinking at the spring in the moss-covered 
cave. “And leaning over the spring, Bessy and Victorine scooped 
the cold water in the hollow of their white hands, and drank it 
with laughing eagerness” 233 


Homer rushed towards Edmund with the fury of a madman. The 
blow descended, and Edmund, thrown violently against the 
marble corner of the mantel-piece, lay prostrate beneath his 
brother’s fratricidal hand, with Victorine, white and almost life- 
less, reclining over him 


d9 


(21) 


/ 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER I. 



PAGE 

INTRODUCTORY 

CHAPTER 

II. 



23 

AUNT PATTY’S STORY 

CHAPTEE 

III. 



50 

FAMILY CORRESPONDENCE 

CHAPTER 

IV. 



67 

V 

MADAME LE GRANDE 

CHAPTER 

_ \ 

v. 



78 

A STRICKEN HOUSEHOLD 

CHAPTER 

VI. 



102 

Edmund’s departure - 

CHAPTER 

VII. 



113 

THE RETURN - 

CHAPTER 

VIII. 



134 

CONFLICTING CLAIMS 

CHAPTER 

IX. 



162 

VICTORINE AND HOMER - 

CHAPTER 

X. 



187 

A MOUNTAIN PIC-NIC - • - 

CHAPTER 

XT. 



209 

CONCLUSION - 
(22) 


" 

- 

312 


Aunt Patty’s Scrap-Bag. 


CHAPTER I. 


INTRODUCTORY. 


HE family of Mr. Worth sat in silence around 



-L the breakfast-table. It was an unusual thing ; 
and one who had been accustomed to the cheerful- 
ness that generally prevailed in the domestic circle 
would have wondered at the stillness, and even 
sadness, that reigned at a board covered with all 
the necessaries and many of the luxuries of life. 
It was, indeed, an inviting board. The cloth was 
white as the snow, which still lay in unmelted 
drifts on the northern side of the dwelling; the 
butter was fresh from the churn, with an impres- 
sion of roses, which no one had yet defaced by a 
knife; the rolls were so light and white, they 
looked as if they had foamed up in the oven and 
petrified there; honey that might have been ex- 
tracted from the flowers of Canaan, from its sweet- 


24 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


ness and clearness, looked temptingly from a trans- 
parent dish ; and buckwheat cakes, palpitating 
and smoking from the griddle, every pore filled 
with melted butter, were passed round the table, 
yet none but the younger children extended their 
fork, moved by a spirit of appropriation. Yes, 
there was one more, and that was Aunt Patty, who 
sat on the right side of Mrs. Worth, near the hiss- 
ing coffee urn, and who never suffered sentiment to 
interfere with the duties of life — and of all its du- 
ties, she considered none of more importance and 
dignity than those connected with the science of 
gastronomy. While the family thus sit in silence, 
and most of them in idleness, we will avail our- 
selves of the opportunity of description, and pre- 
sent them individually before the reader. Let us 
pay honor where honor is due, and commence with 
Mrs. Worth, who sat at the head of the table, 
where she usually presided, the image of smiling 
hospitality ; but this morning there was no smile 
on her face, and every now and then a tear was 
seen gathering in her eye, which she tried to force 
back, but the utmost her efforts could accomplish 
was to prevent the gathering drops from falling in 
a shower. She was a handsome woman, or rather 
a lovely one, and in early youth must have been 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 


25 


beautiful. In her bright and sunny moments her 
cheek still wore a spring-like bloom, but now it 
was pale, and that wanness and languor which pro- 
ceeds from a restless and sleepless night was diffused 
over her whole countenance. She had that soft 
gray eye which we always associate with our idea 
of a religious character — that color which lightens 
and darkens, like the clouds of heaven, in the sun- 
shine and shadow of the heart. Her hair, of pale 
chestnut-brown, was parted on her brow, and 
brought down somewhat low over temples which 
needed their shade to relieve their lofty proportions. 
The plain divided hair was also relieved by the 
border of a thin lace cap, ornamented by a pale 
rose-coloured ribbon. It was the colour her husband 
best loved, and she seldom wore any other. On 
her right side, as if to serve as a foil to her unfaded 
matron charms, sat Aunt Patty, her own maternal 
aunt, whose countenance gave one an idea of ex- 
treme goodness from its excessive homeliness. Her 
nose was very large, particularly at the end and 
about the regions of the nostrils, and, it is probable, 
the consciousness of possessing unusual accommo- 
dations for the business, induced her to adopt the 
profession of snuff-taking. But, whatever was the 
exciting motive, she was the very queen of snuff- 


26 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 


takers, and the number and variety of her fancy 
snuff-boxes were the admiration of all the children 
of the neighbourhood. She had a box deposited by 
her plate with the picture of Bonaparte in full regi- 
mentals on thfe top of it, whose nose was almost 
obliterated by incessant rapping. A crutch rested 
against her chair, which showed she was lame ; and 
as her figure leaned painfully toward the right, it 
was evident that she needed support on that side. 
She had been a cripple from early childhood, and 
having been cut off from all the active enjoyments 
of life, had acquired an inordinate love of reading, 
though her taste was of rather a peculiar kind. 

But we will not enter now into the minutiae of 
mind. We are treating of externals, and there is 
a large family to dispose of before we can be ad- 
mitted into the penetralia, or inner sanctuary. 
There is another peculiarity of Aunt Patty’s. She 
eats with her left hand alone — her right lies passive 
in her lap. Its sinews are contracted, and the skin 
looks dry and withered. When a child she fell 
into the fire, when left to the charge of a faithless 
nurse, and the tender ligaments were scorched, the 
soft muscles hardened and the vigorous growth 
stunted. It may be that her irregularities of fea- 
ture were caused by the same misfortune ; the blood 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


27 


having less power in one part of the system rioted 
too madly in another, and produced many little 
excrescences, such as warts and moles, which' gave 
a striking individuality to Aunt Patty’s appear- 
ance. 

% Notwithstanding her total destitution of personal 
attractions, Aunt Patty was an object of great ten- 
derness and affection to her kindred and intimate 
acquaintances. Unlike many who are visited by 
similar calamities, and who are made selfish and 
hard and suspicious, she had all the disinterested- 
ness and simplicity of a child. But it will never 
do to dwell so long on Aunt Patty, on her first in- 
troduction to the reader, though we acknowledge 
that she is an especial favourite. 

There is a little chubbyVfaeed, fat-armed, rosy- 
cheeked, curly-haired thing, seated up in a high 
chair, close to her side, who looks impatient to at- 
tract our notice. That is Estelle, the young star 
of the group, and the cloud that broods over every 
other face has cast no dimness on hers. It would 
be impossible for her to look sad. Her face is too 
round, her cheeks too rosy and her eyes too blue 
and bright. Her upper lip is too short entirely to 
conceal her ivory teeth, so she cannot help smiling 
if she would ; and her little nose, un peu retrousse, 


28 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


gives an air of inexpressible mischief to her coun- 
tenance. She is Aunt Patty’s pet, who would 
think the sun and moon well appropriated were 
they plucked from the sky to gratify the wishes of 
Estelle. Her dish is piled up with a heap of buck- 
wheat cakes almost as high as her head, swimming 
in an ocean of honey as well as butter, which Aunt 
Patty has provided for her darling, taking advan- 
tage of the sad and abstracted mood of the mother, 
who generally restricts the appetites of the children 
within the bounds of propriety. But Aunt Patty 
thinks that nature is the best guide, and that chil- 
dren ought to eat as long as they can swallow ; and 
there is no doubt that the dawning intellect of 
Estelle was often impeded in its operations by the 
injudicious indulgence of her privileged relative. 

There is a great contrast between the fair, sunny- 
eyed Estelle and the dark, gloomy-browed youth 
seated on her right. Who would dream that he is 
her own brother, the son of that gentle mother ? 
Yet it is even so, and the same blood that seems 
to bubble up in her cherub-cheeks flows like mol- 
ten lead in his veins. He has the lofty brow of 
his mother and the firm-set lips of his father, but 
his eyes are all his own ; large* dark and sullen, 
yet lustrous in their gloom, they remind one of a 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


29 


lantern in a dark abbey, or a torch in a dark pine 
wood, the flash making the shades more deep by 
contrast. The expression of misanthropy, which 
is the prevailing character of his countenance, he 
has worn from early childhood, and it now settles 
like a thick fog on the bloom of his adolescence. 
He is the Esau of the family, who believes there 
is no blessing for him. He seldom sits down at 
the domestic board, and nothing but an occasion 
like the present, would induce him to depart from 
his gloomy and retired habits. Homer has the 
right of primogeniture, but he imagines his younger 
brother has robbed him of his birthright, and had 
he hated the world less, he might have become an 
alien from the pa.ternal roof. The eyes of the father 
are now fixed upon him with an expression of in- 
tense anxiety. Homer frowns under a conscious- 
ness of the steadfast look. He has a horror of 
being gazed upon, and meeting at the same time 
the tearful glance of his mother, he rises suddenly 
and leaves the table. 

Mr. Worth was a man of remarkable dignity of 
appearance and manner. His figure was tall and 
stately, surmounted by a Roman bust and Brutus 
head. He was said to resemble the best pictures 
of Washington, that is, in the somewhat square 


30 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


outline of the face and the large sockets of the 
eyes; but the eyes themselves were larger and 
darker, and Lad more fire and tenderness, and the 
hue of his complexion and hair were both exceed- 
ingly dark. His~ smile was singularly fine, con- 
trasting as it did with the prevailing gravity of 
his countenance. Little Estelle said, “when father 
smiled, it looked like the sun shining out from 
behind a cloud.” Aunt Patty treasured this up 
among the many smart sayings that indicated her 
favourite’s precious genius. If the children hailed 
their father’s smiles as the breaking sunbeams, 
they feared his frowns of anger more than the 
wrath of elements. He was seldom angry, and 
never without a just cause ; and he had such per- 
fect mastery of his own passions, that even when 
unchained he could make them the vassals of his 
will. Plis influence in his own family, in the neigh- 
bourhood — indeed, as far as he was known — was 
irresistible. It was the combined influence of a 
commanding intellect, uncompromising principles, 
enlarged philanthropy and the kindliest sensibil- 
ities; and it is no wonder that such an union 
should have strength. His name became him well. 
It was a compendium of hfs whole character. 

A pale young girl, of about twelve, sat on the 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


31 


right of her father, whose name was Emma; she 
was the eldest daughter of the household, and bore 
a striking resemblance to her father, though a con- 
stitutional delicacy of complexion gave a softness 
to features which might have otherwise seemed too 
decided in their outline. She had a slender chest, 
drooping shoulders, a small, bright flush on her 
cheeks and eyes too large in proportion to the rest 
of her face. But they were so brilliant, so spiritual, 
so unchildish in their expression, that, with her 
fragile frame and delicate, flushed complexion, her 
appearance was uncommonly interesting. You could 
read her history in her countenance from the cradle 
to the present hour. A feeble infant, apparently 
destined for a grave not more than a span long, a 
child of many tender cares and trembling hopes, 
hopes becoming steadier and stronger as time passed 
on without realizing the fears which often over- 
shadowed those trembling hopes. She was the 
young moralist of the family, and sickness had 
given her such sanctity in the eyes of the younger 
children that they looked upon her as more angel 
than mortal, as one who had wings on her shoulders 
ready to unfurl in the golden light of heaven. 

Seated between Emma and Bessy, the younger 
sister, was Edmund, the Jacob whom the misan- 


32 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


thropic Homer suspected and envied. “ In truth, 
young Edmund was no vulgar boy.” There seemed 
an innate nobility about him that spoke in his 
walk, in his bow, in the manner in which he put 
on his hat, or moved a chair, which the stranger- 
guest always noticed and admired. Then there was 
such sunniness and vivacity in his countenance, such 
winning frankness and glowing warmth ; his face 
was like a bright spring morning, all radiance and 
bloom. His mother said that Edmund had never 
given her heart one moment’s pain from disobedi- 
ence, obstinacy, or passion; and Aunt Patty said 
he came into the world with the commandments 
written on his heart, and that there was no need 
of his learning them. It was not often that a 
shadow flitted over his soul-lighted brow ; but one 
rested there now, and it had deepened since Ho- 
mer’s abrupt departure from the table. Indeed, 
that circumstance had added to the evident depres- 
sion of the family group. 

Bessy, the younger sister of Emma, the foster- 
child of Hygeia, looked like no one in the world 
but herself, and no one who saw her could wish 
her to look otherwise. She was very fair, and had 
that Grecian outline of face and feature so beauti- 
ful in profile. Her eyes were of a clear cerulean, 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 33 

mch as you see in a summer morning, and they 
nad a natural lifting towards heaven, as if conscious 
of their consanguinity with the beautiful azure of 
the skies. Then her hair ! who ever saw such 
lovely ringlets? They were of a flaxen colour — • 
not that dry, dingy flaxen, such as is seen on the 
heads of children who roll about all day in the hot 
sun, but a bright, golden texture that sparkled and 
rippled in its own joyous freedom. Bessy was an 
ardent, imaginative child, and she loved to watch 
the clouds at sunset and to tell her dreams in 
the morning. The other children called her Aunt 
Elinor, because Aunt Elinor, in that famous book, 
u Sir Charles Grandison,” was the dream-teller of 
the novel. Not that they had read that voluminous 
work themselves, but they had heard it, revised 
and corrected, from the lips of Aunt Patty, who 
was unequalled in her oral powers. It was the 
first morning for a long time that Bessy had not 
entertained the family with some vision more daz- 
zling and wonderful than all the creations of the 
Arabian Nights, the oracle of her imagination. 
But it is not probable she had any dreams to tell. 
She looked as if she had scarcely slept, and a pink 
circle round her eyes betrayed the tears which had 
been resting there. 


34 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


But why, it m ay naturally be asked, this unusual 
silence and sadness and traces of recent tears ? It 
may be told in a few words. The husband and father 
was about to depart on a long journey. He expected 
to be absent a long time on perplexing business ; 
and, moreover, he was going to the far South, to be 
exposed to a dangerous climate — peculiarly danger- 
ous to a man of his vigorous constitution. He was 
going on horseback, for he could not bear the con- 
finement of a stage when he could ride in the open 
air on his good horse Faithful, who had carried him 
safely over many a rough and weary road. His 
trunks had already been forwarded, and his valise 
lay ready in a chair to be strapped on the back of 
Faithful, who, if he could have been conscious of 
the treasures it contained, would have exulted under 
the burden. Had there been room the children 
would have loaded him with bushels of apples and 
nuts and cakes, to regale the traveller ; as it was, 
they mourned bitterly over the narrow limits pre- 
scribed to them, and wished valises were made of 
India rubber, so that they could be stretched as 
wide as one wished. Estelle was extremely desirous 
to pack up her gray and white kitten for her father’s 
amusement, but when he convinced her that it would 
die for want of air, her solicitude for her kitten con- 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 


35 


quered her filial anxiety. She persuaded him, how- 
ever, to take a china kitten, which had been her pet 
before she had a present of the live one, as there 
was no danger of smothering it and it would occupy 
very little room. 

Emma, who was celebrated for her skill as a 
seamstress, had for some time been sedulously en- 
gaged in making up some fine linen shirts for her 
father, in which she would allow no one to put one 
stitch but herself. Not satisfied with the multitu- 
dinous and superfluous stitches which custom re- 
quires should be used in the manufacture of such 
garments, she was embroidering the gussets and 
hemstitching the bosoms in all the luxuriance of 
ornamental affection, when he convinced her that 
there was great danger of his being taken up as an 
ultra dandy, and she was obliged to content herself 
with greater simplicity of execution. 

Bessy had been knitting a pair of dark worsted 
gloves with an ivory hook, which, after some un- 
expected difficulties, were completed to the satisfac- 
tion of her father, if not to her own. The first 
glove was too small, but he said it was not of any 
consequence, for it would stretch ; the next was too 
large, but he was equally sure that it would shrink. 

This kind of reasoning reminded Bessy of the 
2 


36 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


traveller who warmed his fingers and cooled his 
oroth with the same breath. But when she saw 
the gloves upon his hands, without presenting 
much apparent discrepancy:, she was satisfied of the 
soundness of his arguments. They were a very 
acceptable gift, as the chill winds of March were 
blowing and the traveller needed every comfort to 
shield him from their northern blasts. 

Aunt Patty had put an ample snuff-box in the 
corner of his valise and told him he must take a 
pinch of snuff every night in memorial of her, and 
he must bring her the prettiest box in all Carolina 
as a keepsake in return. Aunt Patty made another 
request, which he promised to remember, and, as 
far as it was practicable, obey. One of her darling 
hobbies was to collect pieces of calico, muslin and 
silk, samples of the dresses of all her friends and 
acquaintances, and every once in a while she would 
open her scrap-bag and review her treasures, tell- 
ing the names of the individuals who wore such 
and such frocks, and relating many choice anec- 
dotes connected with the circumstances under which 
the specimens were obtained. She gave positive 
injunctions to Mr. Worth to preserve relics of the 
dresses of all the ladies with whom he became ac- 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 


37 


quainted, to add to her already vast collection. 
She anticipated a rich feast in comparing the colour, 
texture and figure of the materials which compose 
a Southern lady’s wardrobe, imagining it must be 
entirely different from her Northern sisters. This 
was such an innocent recreation to Aunt Patty, and 
her sources of enjoyment were so limited, and it 
was such a delight to the children to gather round 
her knees and hear the history of the parti-coloured 
shreds which lay like a broken rainbow in her lap, 
that Mr. Worth himself took no small pleasure in 
thinking he should have an opportunity of adding 
to her already immense hoard. She gave him a 
large reception bag in which to deposit the precious 
morceaus, with many directions to learn everything 
possible connected with the wearers of the garments, 
that the increase in her historical lore might be in 
proportion to the accession of her wealth. “ Well,” 
said she, breaking the silence and trying to coax 
Estelle with a fresh roll, who leaned back in her 
high chair in a state of perfect repletion, “ there is 
no use in looking so sad. The world is made up 
of partings and meetings, and if people never 
parted they would never know the comfort of 
meeting again. It is well to go away sometimes 
just to know how good home is. We must only 


38 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP- BAG. 


trust in Providence and all will go right wliere- 
ever we may be.” 

“ Yes, Aunt Patty,” replied Mr. Worth, with a 
slight huskiness of voice, “ you have uttered 
volumes in that little phrase. The belief in a 
guardian Providence, that not only watches over 
me, but mine, will be my best consolation during 
the lonely hours of absence. My wife, my children, 
you must remember that I shall watch the coming 
of the mail as the approach of a good angel, and 
you must not let it come without tokens of love 
for me.” 

u There is no need of reminding me as a duty 
of what will be my chief happiness,” replied Mrs. 
Worth, half reproachfully. “I only fear that I 
shall occupy too much of your time. You know, 
in my own family, they called me the scribbler, and 
I have not forfeited the title.” 

“ You are blest with the pen of a ready writer,” 
said the husband, “ and can speak from the heart 
to the heart most eloquently. There are many who 
are charming companions when present, who are 
cold and careless in absence. Letter-writing is an 
accomplishment of priceless value — one in which 
the best qualities of the head and heart are called 
into exercise. I wish my children to cultivate it in 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


39 


a high degree. They can have no better oppor- 
tunity than addressing an absent and loving father. 
You fear my criticism ? Well, I acknowledge I am 
rather an unmerciful critic, but it is only by the 
exposure of your errors you will improve. I place 
my standard of excellence very high, and you must 
all strive to attain it. Yet be not discouraged — 
simplicity, truth and vivacity are the best qualities 
in a correspondent, and little Estelle herself can 
boast of these, and would write an admirable letter 
if her chirography were equal to her intelligence.” 

“ Chirography !” repeated Aunt Patty — “you 
don’t expect the child to understand such a word 
as that. I always think it best to use short words 
in speaking to children.” 

“ You can explain it to her, Aunt Patty,” said Ed- 
mund, rather archly, for he well knew that though 
Aunt Patty was a devourer of books, she saw no 
necessity of understanding the meaning of every 
word she read herself, and when she saw a long 
word she was apt to skip it. “ But, father,” con- 
tinued he, “ mother will tell you all the good and 
great things in her long letters, and there will be 
none but little, insignificant trifles for us to relate.” 

“ You are mistaken, my boy, if you think great 
things are necessary to give interest to an epistle 


40 


ATJNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


from home. The slightest incident, the description 
of the daily minutiae of life, a walk in the woods, 
a visit to or from a friend, a sketch of the book 
you are reading, the drawing you are making, 
possess a charm which young letter-writers cannot 
imagine, or they would never strain after such un- 
natural subjects and artificial style as they some- 
times do. Even a dream, my Bessy, such as has 
often enlivened our family breakfast-table, would 
be quite captivating at times. You must all write 
as if you were my only correspondent, and be not 
afraid of repeating the same thing twice, for you 
will all relate it in a different manner, and that 
will prevent it from being tedious. I expect a 
great deal from my young moralist here, who can 
turn even the frolics of Estelle’s kitten into sources 
of instruction.” 

Emma blushed, and the children began to reflect 
a great deal on the importance of letter-writing, 
and of the materials they intended to collect to fill 
their future pages. They felt elevated in their own 
estimation since they found their father looked to 
them for intellectual amusement, and they resolved 
that no link should be wanting in the chain of 
events wrought during his absence, but that it 
should receive brightness and beauty from their 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG . 


41 


touch. They became, in a measure, reconciled to 
his departure, and a gleam of sunshine broke 
through the cloud which had lowered oyer the 
household shrine. The long, gloomy silence being 
once broken, conversation flowed more easily and 
cheerfully, and they all, by tacit understanding, 
lingered as long as possible round the table, know- 
ing their rising would be the signal for his de- 
parture. 

“ There is one caution, Aunt Patty,” said Mr. 
"Worth, “ which I must mention, and you must not 
be displeased.” Here one of his rare smiles gleamed 
on his countenance, and Aunt Patty smiled from 
sympathy, though she knew not its meaning. 
u Now,” added he, “ you want your darling Estelle 
to be a beauty, a wit, and a genius, but if you 
pamper her appetite as you now do she will be 
nothing but a gross little animal, with eyes stand- 
ing out with fatness and head as heavy as an apple- 
dumpling. Show your love to her in any other 
way ; give her red -headed pins, buttonwood balls, 
or any of your peculiar gifts, but don’t drown her 
in butter or honey or stuff her with rolls and hot 
cakes.” 

“ If it’s the fashion to starve children now,” re- 
plied Aunt Patty, “ to make them bright, it wasn’t 


42 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


when I was young. I was always allowed to eat 
what I wanted, and it never hurt my intellect.” 

“ But all minds may not possess such a preserva- 
tive principle as yours, Aunt Patty. At any rate, 
attend to my wishes in this respect and I will put 
every lady I see under contribution for your calico 
museum. Edmund, find your brother ; I must see 
him again before I bid you farewell. That un- 
happy boy,” added he in a low voice to his wife 
as they together left the apartment, “ I fear he will 
hang heavy on your heart during my absence.” 

“ Deal gently with him, my husband,” said the 
mother ; “ a word, a mere breath, wounds his sen- 
sitive and too exacting spirit. Do not upbraid him 
for his strange and abrupt manners : a word of 
reproof now would rankle in his bosom for months. 
We must be very, very tender with him, if we 
would not alienate him entirely from our affections.” 

“ Ah ! my beloved Emma,” replied he, “ I fear 
the very excess of your tenderness has a pernicious 
influence on his character. It fosters that morbid, 
selfish sensibility which preys darkly on itself, and 
converts into wormwood and gall the very life- 
blood of his heart. I perceive he is in one of his 
darkest moods, and I cannot leave him without 
making a more strenuous effort than I have ever 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


43 


done before to rouse him from the moral sepulchre 
in which he is entombing himself. Do not fear : I 
will address him with all the tenderness of a 
mother, mingled with the authority of a father; 
and if I cannot move his sullen temper I will take 
him with me rather than the peace of my house- 
hold should be disturbed by his strange paroxysms 
of passion.” 

“ Oh, never !” exclaimed Mrs. Worth; “he would 
be wretched among strangers, and so great would 
be his reluctance that you would be compelled to 
use coercion to force obedience to your will. Though 
you fear the effects of too much tenderness, I have 
no words to express my dread of the consequences 
of such a course. If one human being has more 
influence over him than another, I believe it is 
myself, and I know he will not willingly add to 
the sorrow caused by this long separation.” 

Mrs. Worth hung on her husband’s arm as she 
spoke and looked beseechingly in his eyes. She 
pleaded the cause of her first-born with all a 
mother’s eloquence. Much as her own heart con- 
demned him, she could not bear that others should 
speak with severity of his faults. She seemed con- 
scious that instead of winning, he repelled from 
him, the affections and sympathies of his kind, and 


44 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


she wanted to make up to him in the prodigality 
of a mother’s love for the forfeited esteem of the 
world. So unceasing, so shielding, was her watch- 
ful observance of him that many misinterpreted 
her feelings and believed him her favourite child, 
more especially as she often repressed the gushings 
of her maternal heart toward Edmund, her beau- 
tiful and beloved, lest the demon of jealousy that 
lay like a sleeping lion in the breast of Plomer 
should leap from its lair. 

Unable to control or conceal her agitation, Mrs. 
Worth left the apartment from an opposite door as 
Homer entered and stood before his father with 
folded arms and sullen brow. 

Mr. Worth remained silent a few moments with 
his -left hand in his breast and his right supported 
by the back of a chair. It was his usual attitude, 
and as it presented his person in its full height, it 
enhanced its commanding dignity. The struggle 
to master his emotions gave a sternness to his coun- 
tenance of which he was not aware, and Homer 
felt he was arraigned before a judge rather than a 
father, and he resolved to meet him in the spirit of 
a man. 

“ My son,” said Mr. Worth, “ I wished to speak 
with you a few moments apart from the rest of 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


45 


the family, and I would speak with the solemnity 
of one who may never have an opportunity of ad- 
dressing you again. On the eve of parting from 
objects inexpressibly dear, anxieties, heavy before, 
press upon me with the weight of iron. I go in 
the hope of establishing my claims to an inherit- 
ance which will place my children in affluence and 
give them an influence in society which merit and 
talent alone could not impart. You are my first- 
born son, and, though a mere boy in years, are fast 
acquiring the stature of a man. Your mind has 
grown beyond your years, and were its energies 
well directed it might become at some future day 
a mighty engine to work out your country's good. 
But the same power compressed in its limits may 
be terrible. Like the tiger that chafes in impo- 
tent strength against the bars of its cage, it lashes 
itself to fury, and is wasted itself at last in ineffec- 
tual efforts. You like strong expressions, and I 
use them. You do not like to be treated as a child, 
and I place in you the confidence of a man. For 
your sake, more than for my other children, do I 
involve myself in the intricacies of law and sacri- 
fice the comforts of home. You, as my eldest 
born, will be my representative, and society will 
look to you to keep up the honour of a name 


46 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


known and respected through many generations. 
The higher your fortunes the greater your respon- 
sibilities. My son, I wish you to feel them as you 
ought.” 

“No, father,” replied Homer, gloomily; “it is 
not for me to sustain your name and fame. You 
have another son, younger, it is true, but a great 
deal more gifted and more beloved than I am. 
Let Edmund have all the money, since he has 
stolen everything else.” 

“ And who told you, unhappy boy, that Edmund 
had supplanted you in our affections? What 
proofs of love has he received which have not been 
lavished on you? Oh, Homer, my heart bleeds 
for your perverseness. And there is another heart, 
still more tender and fond than mine, that throbs 
with unutterable anxiety on your account. You 
were the first that opened the overflowing fountain 
of parental love in our bosoms, that fountain which 
no ingratitude can chill, no exactions can drain. 
We love Edmund no better than yourself. There 
is an evil spirit within you which whispers bad 
lessons to your secret soul. Beware, Homer ; it is 
the same spirit that instigated Cain to envy, hate, 
then murder his unoffending brother, and bathed 
the green turf of Eden in kindred blood. The 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


47 


same spirit which urged the jealous brothers of 
Joseph to all their dark and cruel deeds. Beware, 
lest it wind you, body and soul, in its serpent 
folds.” 

Homer turned very pale and his under lip 
quivered with emotion. He averted his head, but 
not before his father saw large, scalding tears 
plashing like rain-drops on his cheek. Mr. Worth 
could man himself against his sullen, defying 
mood, but this unexpected burst of sensibility 
melted him at once. Taking his hand and draw- 
ing him closely to him, he attempted to speak, but 
the effort was ineffectual. Homer’s long pent-up 
feelings having once broke loose were ungovern- 
able. He leaned his head on his father’s shoulder 
and, in the strong language of Scripture, “ lifted 
up his voice and wept aloud.” “Oh, my son,” 
exclaimed his father, when he once more obtained 
the mastery of his voice, “never since the hour 
when I first received you a new-born babe in my 
arms has my heart yearned over you as it does at 
this moment. Promise me, then, in the strength 
of awakened confidence and affection, that you will 
make during my absence the happiness of your 
mother your first object — that of your brothers and 
sisters your next. Promise, with God’s help, that 


48 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


if I should return no more, and this house should 
become the home of the widow and the fatherless, 
that you will be their stay and pillar, their shield 
and consolation.” 

Homer grasped his father’s hands and uplifting 
his eyes repeated the promise he required. Good 
angels were hovering near, and the evil spirit fled 
from the music of their rustling wings. The 
father and son went out together hand in hand, 
and when the mother met them she knew that all 
was well between them, and she was sustained in 
the trying moment of separation. 

The thousand adieus were spoken, the farewell 
embraces given, and the traveller, mounted on the 
back of Faithful, who had also received many an 
affectionate caress, passed from the loved shadow 
of the homestead. The wife retired to her chamber 
that she might veil her grief in secrecy; the chil- 
dren stood at the door and followed with wistful 
gaze the stately figure of their father till the last 
glimpse of his dark-blue riding-dress disappeared 
beneath the arch of two meeting elms. The voice 
of Aunt Patty called them back into the breakfast- 
room. 

“ You must never look after a person as long as 
you can see them,” said she, with mournful empha- 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP BAG. 


49 


sis ; “ it is a sure sign that you will never see them 
again.” 

“Oh, don't say so, Aunt Patty!” exclaimed 
Bessy, with a fresh burst of tears; “we have all 
been looking after him as long as we could see his 
shadow on the snow.” 

A reverential belief in signs and omens was an- 
other of Aunt Patty's individualities ; and in these 
Bessy had more faith than the other children, for 
Aunt Patty was the interpreter of her dreams and 
invested them with a prophetic dignity, at least in 
her own eyes. 


CHAPTER II. 


AUNT PATTY’S STORY. 


T was a rainy day — a real old-fashioned, ortho- 



-L dox rainy day. It rained the first thing in the 
morning, it rained harder and harder at midday. 
The afternoon was drawing to a close, and still the 
rain came down in steady and persevering drops, 
every drop falling in a decided and obstinate way, 
as if conscious, though it might be ever so unwel- 
come, no one had a right to oppose its coming. A 
rainy day in midsummer is a glorious thing. The 
grass looks up so green and grateful under the life- 
giving moisture ; the flowers send forth such a de- 
licious aroma ; the tall forest trees bend down their 
branches so gracefully in salutation to the messen- 
gers of heaven. There are beauty, grace and glory 
in a midsummer rain, and the spirit of man be- 
comes gay and buoyant under its influence. But 
a March rain in New England, when the vane of 
the weather-cock points inveterately to the north- 
east, when the brightness and purity and positive - 


( 50 ) 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


51 


ness of winter is gone and not one promise of 
spring breaks cheeringly on the eye, is a dismal 
concern. 

Little Estelle stood looking out at the window, 
with her nose pressed against a pane of glass, wish- 
ing it would clear up, it was so pretty to see the 
sun break out just as he was setting. The pros- 
pect abroad was not very inviting. It was a patch 
of mud and a patch of snow, the dirtiest mixture 
in nature’s olio. A little boy went slumping by, 
sinking at every step almost to his knees ; then a 
carriage slowly and majestically came plashing 
along, its wheels buried in mud, the horses labour- 
ing and straining and every now and then shaking 
the slime indignantly from their fetlocks, and prob- 
ably thinking none but amphibious animals should 
be abroad in such weather. 

“ Oh ! it is such an ugly, ugly day!” said Estelle; 
“ I do wish it were over.” 

“You should not find fault with the weather,” 
replied Emma ; “ mother says it is wicked, for God 
sends us w T hat weather seemeth good to him. For 
my part, I have had a very happy day reading and 
sewing.” 

“And I too,” said Bessy, “but I begin to be 
tired now, and I wish I could see some of those 


52 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


beautiful crimson clouds, tinged’ with gold, that 
wait upon sunset.” 

“ Bessy has such a romantic mode of expression,” 
Cried Edmund, laughing and laying down his book ; 
“ I think she will make a poet one of these days. 
Even now, I see upon her lips ‘a prophetess’s 
fire/ ” 

Bessy’s blue eyes peeped at her brother through 
her golden curls, and something in them seemed to 
say, “ that is not such a ridiculous prophecy as you 
imagine.” 

“This is a dreadful day for a traveller,” said 
Mrs. Worth with a sigh, and the children all 
thought of their iather exposed to the inclemency 
of the atmosphere, and they echoed their mother’s 
sigh. They all looked very sad till the entrance 
of another member of the family turned their 
thoughts into a new channel. This was no other 
than Estelle’s kitten, which had been perambulat- 
ing in the mire and rain till she looked the 
most forlorn object in the world. Her sides were 
hollow and dripping, and her tail clung to her 
back in a most abject manner. There was a simul- 
taneous exclamation at her dishevelled appearance, 
but Miss Kitty walked on as demurely as if noth- 
ing particular had happened to her, and jump- 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


53 


ing on her little mistress’s shoulder, curled her wet 
tail round her ears and began to mew and purr, 
opening and shutting her green eyes between every 
purr. Much as Estelle loved her favourite, she 
was not at all pleased at her present proximity 
and called out energetically for deliverance. All 
laughed long and heartily at the muddy streaks on 
her white neck and the muddy tracks on her white 
apron, and she looked as if she had not made up 
her mind whether to laugh or cry when a fresh 
burst of laughter produced a complete reaction, 
and a sudden shower of tears fell precipitately on 
Aunt Patty’s lap. 

“Take care, Estelle,” said Edmund; “Aunt 
Patty has got on her thunder-and-lightning calico. 
She does not like to have it rained on.” 

Aunt Patty had a favourite frock, the ground- 
work of which was a deep brown, with zig-zag 
streaks of scarlet darting over it. Estelle called it 
thunder and lightning, and certainly it was a very 
appropriate similitude for a child. It always was 
designated by that name, and Edmund declared 
that whenever Aunt Patty wore that dress it was 
sure to bring a storm. She was now solicited by 
many voices to bring out one of her scrap-bags for 
their amusement. And she, who never wearied of 


54 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


recalling the bright images of her youthful fancy 
or the impressions of later years, produced a gigantic 
satchel, and undrawing the strings, Estelle’s little 
hand was plunged in, and grasping a piece by 
chance, smiles played like sunbeams on her tears 
when she found it was a relic of old Parson Broom- 
field’s banian. It consisted of broad shaded stripes 
of an iron-gray colour, a very sober and ministerial- 
looking calico. “ Ah !” said Aunt Patty, the chords 
of memory wakened to music at the sight ; “ I re- 
member the time when I first saw Parson Broom- 
field wear that banian. I was a little girl then, 
and my mother used to send me on errands here 
and there in a little carriage made purposely for 
me on account of my lameness. A boy used to 
draw me in the same way that they do infants, 
and everybody stopped and said something to the 
poor lame girl. I was going by the parsonage one 
warm summer morning, and the parson was sitting 
reading under a large elm tree that grew directly 
in front of his door. He had a bench put all round 
the trunk so that weary travellers could stop and 
rest under its shade. He was a blessed man, Par- 
son Broomfield, of such great piety that some 
thought if they could touch the hem of his gar- 
ment they would have a passport to heaven. I 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 


55 


always think of him when I read that beautiful 
verse in Job : 1 The young men saw him and 
trembled, the aged arose and stood up.’ Well, 
there he sat that warm summer morning, in his 
new striped banian, turned back from his neck, 
and turned carelessly over one knee to keep it 
from sweeping on the grass. He had on black 
satin lasting pantaloons and a black velvet waist- 
coat that made his shirt collar look as white as 
snow. He lifted his eyes when he heard the 
wheels of my carriage rolling along and made a 
sort of motion for me to stop. ‘Good morning, 
little Patty/ said he; ‘I hope you are very well 
this beautiful morning/ We always thought it an 
honour to get a word from his lips, and I felt as if 
I could walk without a crutch the whole day. He 
was very kind to little children, though he looked 
so grand and holy in the pulpit you would think 
he was an angel of light just come down there 
from the skies.” 

“Hid he preach in that calico frock?” asked 
Emma, anxious for the dignity of the ministerial 
office. 

“ Oh no, child — all in solemn black, except his 
white linen bands. He always looked like a saint 
on Sunday, walking into the church so slow and 


56 AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 

stately, yet bowing on the right and left to the 
old white-headed men that waited for him as for 
the consolation of Israel. Oh, he was a blessed 
man, and he is in glory now. Here,” added she, 
taking a piece of spotless linen from a white folded 
paper, “is a remnant of the good man’s shroud. 
I saw him when he was laid out, with his hands 
folded on his breast and his Bible resting above 
them.” 

“ Don’t they have any Bibles in heaven ?” asked 
little Estelle, shrinking from contact with the 
funereal sample. 

“ Iso, child ; they will read there without books, 
and see without eyes, and know everything with- 
out learning. But they put his Bible on his heart 
because he loved it so in life, and it seemed to be 
company for him in the dark coffin and lonely 
grave.” 

The children looked serious, and Emma’s wistful 
eyes, lifted towards heaven, seemed to long for that 
region of glorious intuition whither the beloved 
pastor of Aunt Patty’s youth was gone. Then the 
youngest begged her to tell them something more 
lively, as talking about death and the coffin and 
the grave made them melancholy such a rainy day. 

“Here,” said Bessy, “is a beautiful pink-and- 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


57 


white muslin. The figure is a half-open rosebud, 
with a delicate cluster of leaves. Who had a dress 
like this, Aunt Patty ?” 

“ That was the dress your mother wore the first 
time she saw your father,” answered the chronicler, 
with a significant smile. Bessy clasped her hands 
with delight, and they all gathered close to gaze 
upon an object associated with such an interest- 
ing era. 

“ Didn’t she look sweet?” said Bessy, looking 
admiringly at her handsome and now blushing 
mother. 

" Yes ; her cheeks were the colour of her dress, 
and that day she had a wreath of roses in her 
hair; for Emma’s father loved flowers and made 
her ornament herself with them to please his eye. 
It was about sunset. It had been very sultry, and 
the roads were so dusty we could scarcely see after 
a horse or carriage passed by. Emma was in the 
front yard watering some plants when a gentleman 
on horseback rode slowly along, as if he tried to 
make as little dust as possible. He rode by the 
house at first, then turning back, he came right up 
to the gate, and, lifting up his hat, bowed down to 
the saddle. He was a tall, dark-complexioned 
young man, who sat nobly on his horse, just as if 


58 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP- BAG. 


he belonged to it. Emma, your mother that is, 
set down her watering-pot and made a sort of 
curtsey, a little frightened at a stranger coming so 
close to her before she knew anything about it. 

‘ May I trouble you for a glass of water ?’ said he 
with another bow. ‘ I have travelled long, and am 
oppressed with thirst.’ Emma curtseyed again, 
and blushed too, I dare say, and away she went for 
a glass of water, which she brought him with her 
own hands. Your grandfather had come to the 
door by this time, and he said he never saw a man 
so long drinking a glass of water in his life. As I 
told you before, it had been a terribly sultry day, 
and there were large thunder-pillars leaning down 
black in the west — a sure sign there was going to 
be a heavy shower. Your grandfather came out, 
and being a hospitable man he asked the stranger 
to stop and rest till the rain that was coming was 
over. He didn’t wait to be asked twice, but jumped 
from his horse and walked in, making a bow at the 
door and waiting for your mother to walk in first. 
Well, sure enough, it did rain in a short time, and 
thunder and lighten and blow as if the house 
would come down; and the strange gentleman sat 
down close by Emma and tried to keep her from 
being frightened, for she looked as pale as death ; 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


59 


and when the lightning flashed bright she covered 
up her face with her hands. It kept on thunder- 
ing and raining till bed-time, when your grand- 
father offered him a bed and told him he must 
stay till morning. Everybody was taken with him, 
for he talked like a book and looked as if he knew 
more than all the books in the world. He told his 
name and all about himself — that he was a young 
lawyer just commencing business in a town near 
by (the very town we are now living in) ; that he 
had been on a journey and was on his way home, 
which he had expected to reach that night. He 
seemed to hate so to go away the next morning 
that your grandfather asked him to come and see 
him again, and he took him at his word and came 
back the very next week. This time he didn’t hide 
from anybody what he came for, for he courted your 
mother in good earnest, and never left her or gave 
her any peace till she had promised to be his wife, 
which I believe she was very willing to be from 
the first night she saw him.” 

“ Nay, Aunt Patty,” said Mrs. Worth, “ I must 
correct you in some of your -items; your imagina- 
tion is a little too vivid.” 

Edmund went behind his mother’s chair and 
putting his hands playfully over her ears, begged 


60 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


Aunt Patty to go on and give her imagination full 
scope. 

“And show us the wedding-dress and tell us 
all about it,” said Bessy. “ It is pleasanter to 
hear of mother’s wedding than Parson Broom- 
field’s funeral.” 

“ But that’s the way, darling — a funeral and a 
wedding, a birth and a death, all mixed up, 
the world over. We must take things as they 
come and be thankful for all. Do you see this 
white sprigged satin and this bit of white lace? 
The wedding-dress was made of the satin, and 
trimmed round the neck and sleeves with the lace, 
and the money it cost would have clothed a poor 
family for a long time. But your grandfather said 
he had but one daughter and she should be well 
fitted out if it cost him all he had in the world. 
And, moreover, he had a son-in-law whom he would 
not exchange for any other man in the universe. 
When Emma, your mother that is, was dressed in 
her bridal finery, with white blossoms in her hair, 
which hung in ringlets down her rosy cheeks, you 
might search the country round for a prettier and 
fai'-er bride, and your father looked like a prince. 
Parson Broomfield said they were the handsomest 
couple he ever married — and, bless his soul ! they 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


61 


were the last. He was taken sick a week after the 
wedding and never lifted his head afterwards. It 
is a blessed thing Emma was married when she 
was, for I wouldn’t want to be married by any 
other minister in the world than Parson Broom- 
field.” 

“ Where’s yonr husband, Aunt Patty ?” said Es- 
telle suddenly. 

Edmund and Bessy laughed outright. Emma 
only smiled — she feared Aunt Patty’s feelings 
might be wounded. 

“ I never had any, child,” replied she after 
taking a large pinch of snuff. 

“ What’s the reason ?” persevered Estelle. 

“Hush, Estelle,” said her mother; “little girls 
must not ask so many questions.” 

“I’ll tell you the reason,” cried Aunt Patty, 
“ for I’m never ashamed to speak the truth. No 
one ever thought of marrying me, for I was a 
lame, helpless and homely girl, without a cent of 
money to make folks think me pretty whether I 
was or not. I never dreamed of having sweet- 
hearts, but was thankful for friends who were will- 
ing to bear with my infirmities and provide .or 
my comfort. I don’t care if they do call me an 
old maid. I’m satisfied with the place Providence 


62 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


has assigned me, knowing it’s a thousand times 
better than I deserve. The tree that stands alone 
by the wayside offers shelter and shade to the weary 
traveller. It was not created in vain, though no 
blossom nor fruit may hang upon its boughs. It 
gets its portion of the sunshine and dew, and the 
little birds come and nestle in its branches.” 

u That is such a beautiful image of Aunt Pat- 
ty’s,” whispered Bessy ; “ I know whom she means 
by the tree and the little birds. But tell me, 
mother,” continued she, passing her arm fondly 
round her neck and looking up smilingly in her 
face, “ how can anybody love anybody as well as 
their own father and mother ? How can they be 
willing to go away from home, where they have 
lived all their lives, to a strange place, with a 
stranger, too, whom they have never seen but a 
little while before ? I’m sure I wouldn’t go away 
from you and father and home if they piled up 
gold enough to reach the skies to tempt me.” 

Mrs. Worth passed her arm round the waist of 
her beautiful child and asked herself whether the 
time would ever arrive when she would feel will- 
ing to transfer such a treasure to the bosom of an- 
other. Her heart imperatively answered, No ! and 
she wondered at the power which had drawn her 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


63 


as if by enchantment from the home of her youth. 
She found it difficult to explain to the simplicity 
of childhood the influence of that master passion 
before which the ties of nature yield like flax in 
the flame; but taking advantage of Bessy’s love 
of metaphor she brought the truth to her mind 
through the medium of her imagination. 

“ You were pleased with Aunt Patty’s simile of 
the tree and little birds,” said she. “Have you 
never noticed, Bessy, that when the birds are very 
young and the feathers thin and the wings weak 
they nestle close to the parent bird without think- 
ing of flying into the blue air and seeking the 
world beyond ? But by and by their wings grow 
strong and coveted with beautiful shining feathers. 
They long to try their strength, and they fly away 
to build nests of their own. And if they meet * 
some sweet warbler in the way they are very apt 
to go in company and sing and work together.” 

“ Oh yes !” exclaimed Bessy ; “ I remember that 
beautiful ballad about the blackbird, who chose his 
mate and was killed by a gunner in the vale. Do 
you recollect that sweet verse, after the bridegroom 
saw the danger ? — 

* Alarmed, the lover cried, “ My dear, 

Haste, haste away, from danger fly I 


64 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


Here, gunner, turn thy vengeance here ; 

Oh spare my love, oh let me die.” 

At him the huntsman took his aim — 

The aim he took was, ah ! too true/ ” 

Bessy’s voice choked. The sorrows of the wid- 
owed bird opened the sluices of her sympathy and 
she could not go on. 

“ Well,” said Edmund, kindly wishing to divert 
her attention and not disposed to laugh at her sen- 
sibility, “ if we are all birds, let us see what kind 
of ones we are. Homer is the eagle, because he’s 
ambitious and wants to be a great man. Yes, he 
shall be the ‘bird of Jove, with thunder in his 
train.’ You know that charming poem of Mont- 
gomery’s where he compares Burns to all the birds 
of the air. Emma is ‘ in tenderness the dove ;’ 
and Bessy, 

‘ Oh, more than all beside, is she 
The nightingale in love/ 

L' tie Estelle is the humming-bird, 

‘ From flower to flower 
Exhaling sweet perfume/ 

Don’t you think, mother, we make a charming 
aviary for you ?” 

“But you’ve left out yourself, brother,” said 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


65 


Emma, “the best of the whole — what will you 
be?” 

“ Oh ! he shall be the bird of paradise,” inter- 
rupted Bessy, “ the most beautiful of all ; and I think 
Homer ought to be the owl — he’s so moping and 
fond of being alone. Then father can be the eagle. 
But what will mother be ?” 

“ Never mind me, children,” observed the mother ; 
“ but you must not give such an emblem to Ho- 
mer ; he would not like it were he to hear it, and 
even in jest you must always beware of wounding 
the feelings of each other. He stays alone in his 
own room that he may study without interruption, 
for you know he enters college in the autumn. He 
is ambitious, as Edmund says, and whoever be- 
comes a great man must first be a studious youth.” 

Though the rain continued unabated, the even- 
ing passed off cheerily round a glowing fire. They 
forgot the dismal scenery abroad in the contempla- 
tion of their in-door comforts. It is not to be sup- 
posed that Aunt Patty had exhausted the store- 
house of memory because we have interrupted the 
thread of her discourse. Scheherezade herself could 
not excel her in the number and variety of her do- 
mestic histories; and after supper was over, and 
the other children seated round the table at their 


66 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


different occupations of reading and sewing, she sat 
in a corner with Estelle at her knees, entertaining 
her with her scrap erudition. 

Ought anything to be regarded as insignificant 
or ridiculous that draws the mind from the narrow 
limits of self, opens the avenues of human sym- 
pathy and adds to the sum of human happiness ? 
Is not Aunt Patty, the lonely, crippled and infirm, 
thus distilling the honey of life from its waste 
flowers and weeds, an object worthy of admiration 
and respect ? 


CHAPTER III. 


FAMILY CORRESPONDENCE. 

T HE children were faithful to the duties their 
father enjoined upon them in his parting 
words, and the good angel of the mail was seldom 
allowed to depart without bearing tokens of love to 
the wayfaring man. They had frequent tidings of 
him as he pursued his journey safely and prosper- 
ously in spite of wind or weather. Whenever it 
was announced that a letter from father had ar- 
rived there was a full concert of joyous sounds and 
an eager rushing to the mother’s side while she read 
the precious communication. Aunt Patty always 
put on her spectacles and took a pinch of snuff to 
hear it the better, and a beam of satisfaction even 
lighted up the misanthropic brow of Homer, for he 
venerated his father and remembered his farewell 
counsel. Mr. Worth had not yet reached the end 
of his journey, but he improved every pause to 
hold communion with the beings more endeared, 
if possible, by absence and increasing distance. 

His letters were sterling gold from the heart’s 

4 ( 67 ) 


68 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


treasury. They were fraught with breathings of 
affection, emanations of soul, counsels of wisdom, 
admonitions of love, tender reminiscences of the 
past and kindling hopes of the future. They were 
sometimes addressed to his wife alone. In these 
the gallantry of the lover, a dash of the chival- 
rous spirit of olden times, mingled with the con- 
fiding tenderness of the husband, gave a charm 
to his letters that a woman only could appreciate. 
Sometimes they were addressed to his Wife & Co. ; 
and it was pleasing to see how perfectly he could 
adapt himself to the peculiarities of every juvenile 
mind, from the sensitive pride of Homer to the in- 
fantile simplicity of Estelle. The answers to these 
letters were so characteristic of the young writers 
that we cannot but think they will prove interest- 
ing to the reader. We will give a few specimens, 
believing them the living transcripts of the youth- 
ful mind. Homer never suffered his brother or 
sisters to read his epistles, and of course he would 
not allow a stranger’s eyes to scan the lines. We 
will begin with Edmund, whose thoughts, clear 
and bright as the sun, were open to the scrutiny of 
all. Edmund was the most unselfish of human 
beings. It will be observed how seldom he speaks 
of himself. 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


69 


Edmund’s letter to his father. 

“ Dearest Father: Your letter, received 
last night, was a family feast. We all gathered 
round mother with hungry ears to hear it; and 
sweet as her voice always is, it never sounded 
sweeter than it did then. You describe every 
thing so minutely we feel as if we were with you, 
and I now know how true it is what you said 
about letter-writing. Everything that takes place, 
we think, ‘That will interest father; we will be 
sure to put that in our next letter ;’ but when 
we have the pen in hand and see it on paper, it 
doesn’t appear half as well. I have been reading 
a great deal and studying too. I want to tell you 
how much I have read in Greek and Latin when 
you return, and how far I have got in mathematics. 
But I ought not to speak of my studying by the 
side of Homer : he is at his books from morning 
till night, and, I have no doubt, will be a very 
great man one of these days. We go to Mr. Farn- 
ham’s office every day to recite, though the mud is 
sometimes up to our knees. You have reached 
better regions than ours, or poor Faithful would be 
lost in the slough of despondency. Of all months 
in the year, I believe March is the most dismal : it 


70 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


is neither spring nor winter, but the mud and the 
snow seem fighting all the time. Bessy saw a little 
patch of green grass yesterday peeping out on the 
edge of the pond (she calls it lake) on the south 
side of the house, and she called us all from the 
four points of the compass to come and worship 
the first herald of spring. Oh, father, I have a 
secret to tell you, but you must not breathe it to 
the winds, lest they should bear it back to Bessy’s 
ear. I found a paper the other day, covered with 
certain strange characters, which, upon examining 
closely, I discovered to be verses of poetry, crossed 
and recrossed, but real genuine rhymes, in Bessy’s 
handwriting. She actually cried when I showed 
them to her, and would not be pacified till I gave 
them up. They were upon your absence, and some 
‘of the lines were very pretty. I recollect two or 
three : 

‘Oh, father dear, why thus your stay prolong? 

The days are darksome, and seem twice as long ; 
Whene’er I look upon the setting sun 
I think of you, and wish your journey done ; 

And, though I loved you, dearly loved, before, 

I do believe I love you more and more.’ 

Now, don’t you think our azure-eyed Bessy will be 
a poetess by-and-by? Her eyes have the true 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


71 


poetical upward turn, and she never sees a volume 
of poems without a bright glow of delight on her 
. cheeks. Emma has not been as well as usual for a 
few days : she caught cold, and has a troublesome 
cough. I often fear that she is too good for this 
world — too gentle and too weak. I don’t believe 
Emma ever told an untruth or committed an evil 
act in her whole life : she always seems thinking 
about heaven. I must not forget to tell you an an- 
ecdote of Estelle : the other day I found her weep- 
ing in a little corner by herself ; it was a long time 
before she would tell me what was the matter with 
her ; at last she said she was afraid she was going 
to die. i Why, little Estelle, you look the picture 
of health !’ ‘ Because, ’cause/ answered she, sob- 

bing, ‘ I heard Aunt Patty tell somebody I was too 
smart to live long.’ Really, dear father, she is the 
most amusing little creature you ever knew — she 
and Aunt Patty together ; I mean, Aunt Patty is 
amusing too, in her odd way, and is she not the, 
best and kindest of human beings, always excepting 
my beloved mother ? I cannot bear to leave you, 
dear father, but I have promised Emma the other 
half of the sheet, as we write together, and I will 
not encroach on her limits, as she always follows 
the Golden Rule, without deviating one hair’s- 


72 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


breadth. I find I have done it already, for there 
is only one page left. I cannot help it now, so 
pray forgive me, and believe me your affectionate 
son, 

“ Edmund.” 

i 

“ Dear and beloved father : Edmund wrote 
the above two or three days ago, and I would have 
finished it immediately, but company came so very 
unexpectedly. The riding is so bad we never 
thought of seeing a human being, but just as we 
were all nicely seated round the evening fire, and 
all of us feeling so quiet and happy — that is, as 
happy as we can be without you — a carriage drove 
up into the yard, and we could not think who it 
was. It was Mr. and Mrs. Wharton, with Francis 
and Laura, all on their way home to Boston from 
a visit to a friend who lives far in the country, 
where they have been detained a long time. You 
remember they stopped here when they were go- 
ing, and it was good sleighing, and they were all 
wrapped up in buffalo-skins, and their horses had 
more strings of bells than I ever saw before. They 
were obliged to leave their sleigh and return in a 
carriage, and they are going to rest here several 
days. We were very glad to see them, for they 
are so lively and agreeable, but I don’t think I 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAO. 


73 


ever would be tired of being with ourselves, alone. 
I love stillness, and I love home just for itself and 
because we can do just as we please, and when any- 
one is visiting here, we must give up our usual pur- 
suits, and do everything to entertain the company. 
I am afraid I am very selfish, and will try to cor- 
rect myself. They have all indulged me so much, 
and been so kind and tender, there is great danger 
of my thinking more than I ought of my own 
gratification. They always give me the warmest 
seat in the room because I am apt to take cold ; 
if we ride abroad, I must always wear the warm- 
est cloak or shawl, and I must ride oftener than 
anybody else, because, they say, the exercise will 
Strengthen me ; and I can do so little in return for 
them. Edmund is the kindest brother that ever 
Was in the world ; I believe he would walk bare- 
foot to the end of the universe if his mother or 
sisters asked him. Francis Wharton seems a good 
boy, but he is not like Edmund ; he is more boister- 
ous and rude. I cannot think what pleasure there 
is in making a noise : it only gives me a headache. 
Laura is a very fashionable little miss, and, I have 
no doubt, thinks me quite a dowdy. Bessy admires 
her very much, and she says Bessy is a great beauty. 
Oh, I hope you will come home very soon, for we 


74 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


all long to see you so much. My heart aches to be 
near you once more, to feel your kind hand on my 
head and your good-night kiss on my cheek. Dear- 
est father, if it is so hard to part from friends for a 
little time here, how can we ever leave them and 
think we shall never, never return?” Here a 
tear, which blotted the next word, indicated a sad 
foreboding in the heart of the young invalid. 

Bessy had the privilege of writing with red ink, 
crossways, in her mother’s letter, and it was a 
colour suited well to her glowing imagination. 

“ Dear father,” said she, “ it is a pity that I am 
younger than Edmund and Emma, for they tell you 
all the news before my turn comes. Fanny Whar- 
ton had told me so many beautiful things about the 
city, it makes me long to visit it. She goes to the 
theatre very often, and she says everything seems 
just like a fairy-tale, so brilliant and changing all 
the time. Father, if you get very rich while you 
are gone, you must take us all to the theatre and 
museum, and to see all the fine things in all the 
cities. I don’t think I should care anything about 
balls and parties, but I do want to see those bright, 
strange things such as I dream about so often. 
Oh, I had such a wonderful dream I must relate 
it; you told me I might write a dream if I hadn’t 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP- BAG. 


75 


anything else to say. I thought I saw a large 
clock, so large that it reached up to the skies, 
and it went down, all out of sight; the hands 
looked as big as iron bars, and when it struck, it 
sounded as loud as thunder. Every time it struck 
it said, ‘Time, Time , Time,’ so deep and solemn it 
made me feel trembling all over. Wasn’t that a 
strange dream for a little girl like me? Aunt 
Patty says it means that something great is going 
to happen to me. I know, when I went to bed 
that night, I laid awake, thinking how strange it 
was that we were in this world now and wouldn’t 
be here by and by, and trying to think what the 
difference was between time and eternity. It 
seemed to me — and perhaps it was very wicked — 
that if I thought about it long enough, I could 
find out how it was that God never began to be. 
Every night these thoughts come upon me, and — I 
cannot help it — I lie and look up to the moon and 
stars, and things come into my mind that I never 
read or heard about, and it seems as if angels told 
them to me. Estelle just came to me and said, 
‘ Tell father Aunt Patty don’t give me too much 
to eat; I don’t mean to be an animal.’ A lady 
called here yestetday to see Mrs. Wharton, who 
offended Aunt Patty very much. ‘ Why, how 


76 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


homely little Estelle grows!’ said she; ‘she is 
really getting quite coarse.’ ‘Ask the lady to look 
in the glass,’ said Aunt Patty. Everybody laughed, 
and the lady didn’t look pleased ; she wasn’t pleased 
with anything. ‘ Why, Emma is quite deformed,’ 
said she ; ‘ one shoulder is larger than the other.’ 
‘I’d rather have a crooked back than a crooked 
mind,’ retorted Aunt Patty. You know poor 
Emma is weak and cannot sit very straight, and 
I think it was cruel to say anything to hurt her 
feelings. I thought the lady had a very cross look, 
and as she was squint-eyed, perhaps she couldn’t 
see right. Oh, pray forgive this big blot, for 
Frank Wharton pushed my arm on purpose, be- 
cause I wouldn’t get up and play with him. 
Please write me a letter all to myself that I can 
keep, and I will keep it so precious no one shall 
know its plac§. You don’t know how much we 
all love you. 

* Farewell ! my tongue or pen can never tell 
The flames of love that in my bosom dwell.’ 

“ Bessy.” 

Bessy, like most juvenile poets, was prone to ex- 
travagance in her expressions of affection, but her 
father knew how to appreciate them, and, doubt- 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


77 


less, these artless effusions were priceless in his 
estimation. 

Shall we follow the wife to her lonely chamber, 
whither she has retired after the children have sep- 
arated for the night, and steal a glance at the sheet 
on which she is pouring out her soul unto her hus- 
band? There, like the lovely Geraldine, “all in 
her night-robe loose she sits reclined,” “o’er her 
dear bosom strays her hazel hair,” while she traces 
on the silent page before her the thoughts she had 
been garnering up through the day. Foolish chil- 
dren! to think their mother would steal all the 
stirring incidents of the day and leave them noth- 
ing to relate. That page is the heart’s scroll 
unrolled, a tablet of pure, elevated, kindling 
thoughts and warm, deep — yea, unfathomable — love 
— a love far more deep and intense than when, in 
Aunt Patty’s legend, she stood in white satin and 
lace, the handsomest bride Parson Broomfield ever 
united in the holy bands of matrimony. Angels 
guard thee in thy retirement, thou faithful wife and 
tender mother ! Thy lamp is the last that glim- 
mers on the darkness of the neighbourhood, and 
many an eye that looks up from a sick and restless 
pillow on the mystery of night blesses thee and 
many a sad heart likens thee to that cheering ray. 


CHAPTER IV. 


MADAME LE GRANDE. 



I RANK and Laura Wharton remained several 


-L weeks with their young country friends, in 
consequence of the almost impassable state of the 
roads. There were two members of the family 
who lamented their protracted stay — Homer, who 
always looked upon strangers with distrust and 
dislike, and Emma, whose feeble nerves shrunk 
from contact with those whose animal spirits effer- 
vesced so boisterously as Frank’s, and whose refined 
simplicity was little pleased with the fine-lady airs 
of Laura. Edmund’s joyous nature found some- 
thing congenial in the gayety and ''warmth of 
Frank’s character, and Bessy’s ardent imagination 
was completely captivated by Laura’s overwrought 
description of theatrical splendours and fashionable 
amusements. Mrs. Worth saw, with some mater- 
nal fear, this new influence exercised on her daugh- 
ter’s susceptible mind, but she trusted it would pass 
away like one of her own vivid dreams. Mrs. 
Wharton had been the friend of her youth, but, 


( 78 ) 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


79 


though a very charming maiden, she did not prove 
a judicious mother, believing excessive indulgence 
a parent’s crown of glory. 

“ I never had the heart to deny my children 
anything,” she would often say to her friend. 
“ You have more resolution than I have. I should 
fear to lose their affection if I refused to gratify 
their wishes.” 

“ Do you not think my children love me ?” asked 
Mrs. Worth. 

" Yes ; I never saw children so affectionate or 
obedient ; a look from you has more effect than a 
thousand words from me. But your children are 
very different from mine. You must have per- 
ceived how very difficult mine are to manage.” 

Mrs. Worth smiled. She believed all children 
difficult to manage who were not accustomed to be 
controlled from infancy, and she felt very certain ' 
that if the superfluous energy of Frank and the 
luxuriant taste of Laura had been earlier restrained 
and directed, they would only have strengthened 
and adorned the characters they now threatened to 
deform. 

At length a mild, bright, genial morning suc- 
ceeded to a week of clouds and east winds. 
Glimpses of green were seen on the edges of 


80 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


streams that now rolled in the gladness of vernal 
freedom, "reflecting in their waters the intense blue 
of a cloudless sky. Here and there a large flock 
of swallows floated like a dark wave overhead, 
showing that the “ time of singing-birds was com- 
ing,” and that the winged wanderers were all about 
to return from a more southern clime. Bessy ran 
into the room in a perfect glow of rapture. “ Look, 
mother !” exclaimed she, holding up a pale, small, 
delicate blue flower unprotected by a single green 
leaf ; “ I have found the first flower of spring. 
Here is a Houstonia cerulea that I plucked in 
yonder field. It looked like a star shining through 
the darkness.” 

“ Keally, Bessy !” said Frank, laughing loudly ; 
“ one would think you had found a string of dia- 
monds or a purse of gold, instead of this little, old, 
pinched flower.” 

“ She talks as if she had found an exotic,” said 
Laura. 

Bessy blushed, and thought it very likely that, 
in comparison with the exotics of the greenhouse, 
her little spring flower would dwindle into insig- 
nificance. She felt ashamed of her enthusiasm, 
and the glow faded from her cheek. 

(( Let us all take a walk and gather flowers,” 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 


81 


said Edmund ; “ Bessy’s star shall guide us on our 
way.” 

This proposition was hailed with joy by the 
youthful party, and Bessy forgot her mortification 
in the excitement of the preparation. Emma, 
whose delicacy of health precluded her from such 
an enjoyment at this season of the year, shawled 
and bonneted the little Estelle, who kept jumping 
up and down the whole time, making the operation 
almost impracticable in the exuberance of her glee. 
She lingered on the threshold after the gay pedes- 
trians had departed till their merry laugh died on 
her ear, then turned away with a sigh. The soft 
blue sky, the murmur of the rivulet, the song of 
the birds and the April flower, instead of exciting 
her spirits to buoyancy and mirth, filled her heart 
with a tender sadness which longed to gush forth 
in tears. The gay sports of childhood, the long 
walk in the open air, u the hop, skip and jump,” 
in which young and elastic limbs delight, were not 
for her. 

“I wish I were strong and healthy,” said she, 
seating herself again near the fire and pressing her 
hand on her aching side ; “ one must be so happy 
when they can forget the body and let it do just as 


82 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP- BAG. 


Homer, who was the only person then present, 
and who # was leaning oyer a book, with his hands 
placed oyer both ears to exclude every noise, turned 
hastily round at the sound of her voice, for he did 
not like to be interrupted ; there was a frown upon 
his brow and an impatient motion of the lip. But 
there was something in the drooping attitude of 
Emma and her pale, dejected countenance that 
appealed to his sympathy and painfully recalled 
his father’s parting words. She was gazing in the 
fire, and large tears slowly chased each other down 
her cheeks. “Emma, what is the matter?” said 
he, taking a seat by her side ; “ what makes you 
look so sorrowful ? Surely you don’t care about 
walking with that boisterous Frank and his silly 
little sister?” 

Emma was touched by the unusual kindness of 
Homer’s manner, and her tears flowed faster. “ I 
don’t know what is the matter with me,” said she, 
“ only I am nervous and foolish, and, I am afraid, 
selfish too. For when I heard them so merry and 
laughing, I felt as if I must cry or my heart 
would break. Oh, brother, you don’t know how 
hard it is, when one is so very young, to feel as 
weak and languid as I do sometimes, and to think, 
too, that I may never live to be much older.” 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP- BAG. 


83 

“ Don’t talk so, Emma, don’t ! You know you 
have been better than ever this winter, and when 
the weather gets warm, and you can ride abroad 
more, and walk in the garden, and attend to the 
flowers, you will be in better spirits.” 

“But I am so useless,” said Emma; “yet every- 
body is so kind to me. I sometimes feel very will- 
ing to die, and think it is a beautiful thing to die 
young, before one knows anything of the wicked- 
ness of the world. Then, again, to leave every one 
we love and lie down alone in the cold grave — oh, 
it’s a dreadful thought !” 

Emma involuntarily gave expression to feelings 
which had often chilled her veins at the midnight 
hour and saddened her noonday meditations. She 
so seldom spoke of her sufferings and fears that 
Homer was greatly shocked and affected by her de- 
sponding expressions. He felt drawn toward her 
by a tenderness such as he had never felt before, 
and resolved, that he would henceforth endeavour 
to contribute to her happiness and comfort. He 
had always stood aloof from his brothers and sis- 
ters, refusing to share in their joys or their sorrows, 
till they ceased to look for his participation in 
either. Emma, sad and sickly, left behind because 
unable to unite in the active enjoyments of child- 


84 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


hood, became, from this moment, a thousand times 
dearer to him than the blooming Bessy or rosy 
Estelle. He put his arm soothingly round her — a 
caressing motion so strange in the cold, repelling 
Homer that Emma lifted her eyes wonderingly to 
his face to prove his identity. 

“You must not give way to such gloomy 
thoughts, Emma,” said he ; “ that noisy Frank has 
given you a headache and made you nervous and 
weak. When I am a man, and father gets the for- 
tune he has gone to secure, I mean to have a house 
of my own, and you shall come and live with me. 
Edmund will be a fine gentleman, and carry Bessy 
into the great world, and show her the theatres and 
museums that Laura tells so much about, but you 
and I despise such things, and we’ll live together 
and have nothing to do with the rest of the world. 
We’ll have a library as large as the Alexandrian 
library, and fine pictures and statues from Europe. 
I would like a wall built round the house, and a 
drawbridge that would lift up, so that no one could 
enter unless we chose to admit them.” 

“But don’t you mean to marry wfyen you get 
old enough, Homer?” asked Emma, her spirits re- 
viving at the unusual kindness of the youn^ mis- 
anthrope. 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


85 


“ No, never,” answered he, with a look of scorn. 
“ I would as soon live in Aunt Patty’s scrap-bag. 
All women are foolish except my mother.” 

“ But perhaps some of the little girls may grow 
wise enough for you, Homer, by the time you are 
ready,” said Emma, now smiling through her tears. 
“ Who knows but that Laura Wharton may be a 
wise woman yet? I heard her say she thought 
you a great deal handsomer than Edmund, and 
that she expected you would make a great man.” 

“ You know she never said that of me,” replied 
Homer, angrily, “ except in ridicule. I had rather 
any one would stab me than laugh at me.” 

“No, indeed, brother; she said it to Frank 
when she did not know any one heard her. And 
he laughed, and said you had as much beauty as a 
thunder-cloud.” 

A gleam like lightning darted across the “thun- 
der-cloud.” It was a pleasant thing to be thought 
superior to Edmund, even by Frank’s silly little 
sister. Homer, in this interview, had manifested 
two unwonted human emotions, sympathy for 
sorrow and susceptibility to praise. 

In the mean time, .the young pedestrians con- 
tinued their morning walk rejoicing. Even the 
little city maiden, who was too genteel to wear 


86 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG . 


anything but kid shoes, which were soon sadly 
soiled by the mud, forgot her measured pace and 
bounded and ran with the rest. If they saw a 
green patch on the dark ground-work of the soil, 
there was a simultaneous shout and a rush toward 
the spot, striving to see who should reach it first. 
Edmund always reached the goal first, though 
Frank was the first to start, and was sure to push 
down some one in his way, whether accidentally or 
intentionally it is difficult to solve. Once he over- 
turned Estelle and threw her flat on her face in the 
mud, bending the wire of her bonnet in such a 
grotesque manner it threw him into convulsions 
of laughter. 

u Oh, Frank ! how can you be so rude ?” cried 
Bessy, wiping the dirt from Estelle’s cheeks and 
nose ; “ see how you have spoiled her pretty bon- 
net.” 

% 

Frank, who was as good-natured as he was 
thoughtless, checked his mirth at the sight of Es- 
telle’s tears, and insisted upon carrying her in his 
arms as an expiation for the* offence. The only 
vengeance which Estelle threatened was to tell 
Aunt Patty, and when Frank put on a rueful 
look of penitence, she promised to remit even that. 

“ Let us walk to Madame le Grande’s,” said Ed- 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 87 

mund ; “ Laura will be delighted with her, she is 
so fashionable, and a French lady besides.” 

“Oh yes!” exclaimed Laura; “I know from 
her name she must be charming. Has she any 
daughters ?” 

“ Only one,” answered Edmund — “ a very ac- 
complished young lady named Victorine.” 

“ Oh what a beautiful name !” cried Laura ; “ I 
long to see her. But why di In’t you tell me 
sooner ? I have on only an every-day frock, and 
I couldn’t think of calling thejre now.” 

“ Never mind,” said Frank; “Madame le Grande 
and Mademoiselle Victorine both will excuse it. 
People who live in great style are never as par- 
ticular in their dress as others.” 

“ Must we parlez-vous Franyais to Mademoiselle 
Victorine, or does she understand English well ?” 
asked Frank, laughing. 

“She can speak both languages fluently,” re- 
plied Edmund; “it makes no difference which 
you use.” 

Here Laura made a full pause by the wayside 
to arrange her dress and smooth her hair before 
presenting herself to the fashionable Madame le 
Grande. Bessy very good-naturedly assisted her 
in her toilet, though she seemed excessively amused 


88 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


at her superfluous anxiety about her personal ap- 
pearance. Sometimes she would shake back her 
own golden ringlets from her smiling eyes and 
glowing cheeks, and burst into a merry peal of 
laughter, in which Estelle joined, but Edmund 
looked grave and told them Mademoiselle Vic- 
torine never laughed loud. 

“ There is Made me le Grande’s,” exclaimed he 
as a low, faded wh ice cottage appeared, situated far 
back from the roadside, with a dark railing in front, 
which ran along unbroken by a gate. 

“ That Madame le Grande’s ?” cried Laura, with 
a look of astonishment ; “ I thought you said she 
lived in great style.” 

“ But you have not seen the inside. You know 
the French don’t pay so much attention to the out- 
side of the houses as the English.” 

The children were obliged to jump over the rail- 
ing for want of a gate, and were soon at the door 
of the cottage. 

“ I never should dream of sucli a great lady as 
Madame le Grande’s living in such a little, old 
place as this,” said Laura. 

“But it is beautiful in summer,” cried Bessy; 
“ only look, Laura, what a charming prospect there 
is even now !” 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP- BAG. 


89 


The children looked back upon a landscape on 
which some faint traces of vernal beauty were be- 
ginning to steal over the bleakness of departing 
winter. The river, graceful in its continuous un- 
dulations, rolled sparkling and shining through the 
meadows and fields, reflecting the blue of the sky, 
and, melting into that beauteous blue, was seen the 
soft outline of distant mountains, girdling the valley 
with an azure zone. 

“ Is it not lovely ?” repeated Bessy, with growing 
enthusiasm. “ But if you saw it in summer, when 
the trees are all covered with green leaves, and the 
fields are all green, and the flowers spring up here 
and there and everywhere, and the fruit hangs on 
the boughs, you would say you never saw anything 
so beautiful in all your life.” 

Here the door opened, and the tide of Bessy’s 
eloquence was arrested by the ample person of 
Madame le Grande herself. Laura, who had pre- 
pared to make her handsomest dancing-school 
curtsey, stood rigid with astonishment at the ex- 
traordinary figure which met her gaze. Madame 
le Grande was dressed in the fashion of the last 
century, but the original colour of her robe it was 
impossible to determine, as it seemed to have been 
worn for years without passing through the custom- 


90 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


ary ablutions. She wore a turban of dirty yellow, 
which looked coeval with her dress, and her dingy 
brown hair defied, in its tangles, the aid of brush 
or comb. Her complexion might have been fair, 
but it was brown with the accumulated soil and 
dust of time. Indeed, she was well worthy of the 
name by which she was universally known — the 
queen of slovens. Yet, beneath this disgusting ex- 
terior, she carried the native graces of a French- 
woman, and invited her young Quests to enter with 
smiles and bows that would have graced a city 
drawing-room. Frank took off his hat and bowed 
down to the ground, but Laura, casting an indig- 
nant glance at Edmund, made no acknowledgment 
of the lady’s politeness. She pressed her frock 
close to her as she passed through the door, which 
she entered after the others, led on by an impulse 
of irrepressible curiosity. The parlour, or sitting- 
room, or boudoir, or whatever name it bore, was 
indeed furnished in a most original manner and 
occupied by original guests. A young girl about 
Bessy’s age was seated by the fire embroidering a 
dingy green shawl with parti-coloured crewel. A 
young pig was crouched at her feet in a loving po- 
sition, and on a large table on her left were reposing 
eight or nine young cats and kittens which looked 



Bessy, Frank, Laura, and Edmund pay a visit to Madame Le Grande, where 
they see \ictorine, surrounded by a French menagerie. “Yet beneath this 
disgusting exterior, Madame Le Grande carried the native graces of a French- 
woman, and invited her young guests to enter." — Page 90. 



I 


t 






















s 































* 




































AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


91 


as if they lived in the chimney, so begrimed with 
soot and smoke were their once white and silky 
coats. Some very familiar and domestic-looking 
hens were walking about the room, occasionally 
picking corn from the floor, evidently scattered 
there for their accommodation. A gentleman 
dressed in a suit of faded black sat on the other 
side of the fireplace, so intent upon a book in which 
he was reading that he did not at first notice the 
entrance of the juvenile visitors. But when he 
raised his head, he discovered a countenance so 
benign and intelligent, a forehead so high and com- 
manding, an eye so bright and winning, that, in spite 
of his strange accompaniments, he won instantane- 
ously the respect which is a gentleman’s due. The 
young girl, who was Mademoiselle Victorine, laid 
her embroidery frame by the side of the cats and 
asked the young ladies to be seated. Her •appear- 
ance was as singular as her mother’s, but there was 
not the slightest personal resemblance. Her eyes 
were of deep, brilliant black, and her long hair, of 
the same hue, hung in matted tresses down her 
back. The ground-work of her frock had once 
been white, but it had lost all its original purity, 
and large bunches of flowers were dimly seen de- 
lineated on the dusky expanse. It was remarkable 


92 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


to see the ease and grace with which this strange 
and grotesque-looking girl accosted her guests and 
acted the part of a hostess. 

Edmund and Bessy, who were familiarized to the 
mysteries of this singular household, enjoyed the 
silent wonder of Frank and Laura, who looked as 
bewildered as if they were plunged in the midst 
of a menagerie. By the sMe of the table of cats 
was an old-fashioned harpsichord, and over it were 
several rows of bookshelves filled with classic 
works. That Monsieur le Grande was a scholar 
was evident from the authors which he had se- 
lected; that Mademoiselle Victorine was an ac- 
complished child seemed as evident from the em- 
broidery frame and harpsichord ; and Madame le 
Grande had the manners of a lady of the first 
rank. And yet they lived among animals in the 
midst of congenial elements, regardless of the com- 
forts and decencies of life, apparently as contented * 
and happy as the inmates of a palace. 

“ We have a great many pets,” said Madame le 
Grande, looking smilingly round on her dumb 
favourites, “ but I could not spare one of the dear 
creatures.” 

“ I would not give Fidele for all of them,” cried 
Victorine, caressing a little shabby dog that just 


A UNT PA TTY ’S SCRAP-BA 0. 93 

emerged from a heap of rubbish and leaped park- 
ing into her lap. 

“Let us go,” whispered Laura to Bessy; “it 
makes me sick to see so much dirt.” 

When the children rose to depart, Madame le 
Grande loaded their handkerchiefs with apples and 
nuts, which they said they would carry home and 
divide with Emma. 

When they left the house, Laura reproached 
Edmund and Bessy for deceiving her so, declaring 
that she would rather starve than eat anything 
that came out of such a den of wild beasts. Frank 
was in boisterous spirits, and pretended to be in 
raptures with Yictorine, asserting that she was the 
most beautiful creature he had ever seen. 

“ She would be beautiful,” said Bessy, “ if she 
were dressed nicely and kept her hair smooth and 
her face fair ; she makes me think of the stories I 
have read about gypsies, with her shining black 
eyes and coal-black hair.” 

“ But what makes them live in such a dirty old 
place, among the pigs and cats and dogs ?” asked 
Laura. “ I don’t think Christian people ought to 
visit them.” 

“ You must get Aunt Patty to tell you all she 
knows about them,” replied Edmund. “ She has 


94 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


a scrap of Victorine’s flowered frock, and if you 
can only draw that out of her bag, the family his- 
tory will come with it. I have heard my father 
say that Monsieur le Grande was one of the most 
intelligent, well-informed gentlemen he ever met 
with, and that he would be an ornament to any 
society. They are very wealthy and extremely 
kind to the poor.” 

“ One of these days,” said Frank, “ when I get 
to be a man, I mean to come back and see Made- 
moiselle Victorine ; I will teach her how to wash 
her face and comb her hair, and make a fine lady 
of her.” 

The idea of Yictorine’s taking toilet lessons of 
Frank amused the children excessively, and as 
the springs of mirth, when once touched, are apt 
to vibrate long in the breast of childhood, they 
continued to laugh till they reached the threshold 
of home. 

In the evening, when the children were discours- 
ing the events of the day, Laura reminded Ed- 
mund of his promise to tell them something more 
about the strange, dirty family they had visited in 
the morning. 

“Oh, Aunt Patty must tell you,” replied Ed- 
mund; ‘ she is the historian of the town. But 




AUNT TATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


95 


she must produce her scrap-bag first, for she keeps 
her memory tied up with her pieces.” 

This was a request which Aunt Patty never re- 
fused, and she was soon seated in the midst of a 
circle of smiling faces. Estelle sat on a little stool 
at her feet, holding her snuff-box in her left hand, 
with the right extended ready to plunge into the 
open reservoir. Emma sat quietly near ; the tears 
of the morning exhaled in the sunshine of Homer’s 
kindness had left a soft glow on her cheek delicate 
as the hue of the rose when the dew has just dried 
on its petals. Bessy leaned over her lap so close 
that the rich foliage of her waving hair shaded the 
fair tints of her sister’s face, while it seemed to 
glorify her own. Nothing could be more charm- 
ing than the young group that surrounded Aunt 
Patty, the sibyl of the evening. Laura, with her 

€ ooth brown locks braided down her back and 
1 at the ends with blue ribbon, formed a pleas- 
ing contrast to the two lovely sisters. And then 
Frank’s round, laughing face peeping over Ed- 
mund’s shoulder, as if ready to penetrate the mys- 
teries of the bag, and Edmund’s brow so fair and 
noble, and wearing that princely expression pecu- 
liar to himself. It was a family picture exhibited 
in the light a painter best loves. And how proud 


96 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


Aunt Patty looked, to be the cynosure of those 
starry eyes, the living focus of those rays of youth 
and beauty ! She undrew the string of her scrap- 
bag, smiled and nodded, patted Estelle on the 
head, then taking a large pinch of snuff, Edmund 
declared she sneezed out of the bag the identical 
sample of Yictorine’s frock which was destined 
to be the subject of their evening’s entertaiQment. 
Sure enough, it lay on the top of the pieces, con- 
spicuous for its enormous flowers and gaudy colours. 

“ Tell us all about Yictorine, Aunt Patty,” said 
Frank. “ Did she spring up there among the cats 
and pigs, or has she lately come over from the 
great city of Paris?” 

“ You must let me begin in the right place,” re- 
plied Aunt Patty, smoothing out ihe flowers on her 
knee, “or I never shall tell anything straight. 
The first time I ever saw Yictorine, it was about 
two years ago, and she had on this very frock.” 

“ And she’s worn it ever since, I dare say,” said 
Frank. 

“ Hush, Frank !” said Laura ; “ you always in- 
terrupt one so.” 

“Well,” continued Aunt Patty, “very likely she 
has, for the poor thing don’t know any better. 
Her mother brings her up among the animals, and, 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


97 


as they don’t change their coats, I suppose she 
thinks there is no occasion for her to change hers. 
One Sunday afternoon, just as the services closed, 
there came up a terrible storm of rain, and it thun- 
dered and lightened too. The carriage went home 
first with my niece Emma — Mrs. Worth that now 
is — and little Emma and Bessy. Edmund waited 
with me, for I was afraid to ride when it thundered, 
and ' we sat down in one of the pews till the car- 
riage should return. Edmund got tired sitting still, 
and went up in the gallery and walked about there 
at his leisure. Who should he see there, all by 
herself, but a little girl in a flowered frock and 
green bonnet crying bitterly ? He came down and 
told me what he had seen, and I sent him back to 
bring her to me, for it is hard work for me to hob- 
ble up stairs with my crutch. The poor thing came 
crying and hanging down her head, saying she 
didn’t know how to get home, and she thought she 
was all alone in the big church. I asked her where 
she lived, and told her I would take her home 
when the carriage came, but that she needn’t be 
afraid in the church, for it was no other than the 
house of God and the gate of heaven. It rained 
very hard when we left the church, and we had to 
go a roundabout way to carry the child home. 


98 AUNT FATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 

The horses got restive, going backward and for- 
ward in the storm, and when we stopped to set her 
down, they wouldn’t stand still, but arched their 
necks and frisked about in a frightful manner. The 
little girl jumped out like a squirrel, and Edmund 
leaped after her and tried to get at the horses’ 
heads. But quicker than lightning they sprang 
up in the air and overturned the carriage in a 
moment.” 

“ Oh, Aunt Patty ! didn’t they kill you ?” cried 
Estelle. 

“ Not quite, my darling. I knew nothing in the 
world till I found myself between a pair of sheets 
that Adam and Eve might have slept in, for aught 
I know ; all the waters of the deluge wouldn’t 
liave made them clean. The wild, heathenish-look- 
ing child was standing on one side of me, and a big 
woman in a yellow turban on the other. I tried 
to move, but I was so bruised and hurt I couldn’t 
lift my hand to my head, and there I had to stay 
three days and nights.” 

“In those dreadful sheets?” asked Bessy. 

“ No, child ; the first night I was there a blood- 
vessel broke, in consequence of my fall, and every 
thing round me was stained with the blood that 
flowed from my mouth. Your mother, who came 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


99 


to me as soon as she heard of th^ accident, sent for 
clean linen and napkins, saying she could not 
think of giving so much trouble to my kind hostess. 
And kind, indeed, she was, and so was little Vic- 
tor ine. They watched by me as if I were the 
dearest friend they had in the world, and I believe 
it is owing to the skilful nursing of Madame le 
Grande that I am yet in the land of the living.” 

“I do believe,” interrupted Laura, “that I 
would rather die/ than have that ugly, dirty woman 
do anything for me.” 

“ She is not half as dirty as the damp grave and 
the earth-worm,” replied Aunt Patty, with solem- 
nity. “ Til tell thee what, child, if you were lying 
in agony, thinking, perhaps, every hour might 
bring you into the presence of the holy One of 
Israel, and all your sins passing before your eyes 
dark and thick, you wouldn’t be squeamish about 
the hands that smoothed your pillow and held your 
aching head. You would be thankful to be nursed 
by any one in the world, or your heart is harder 
than I think it is.” 

“I would like to know,” said Frank, “what 
made Monsieur le Grande, who is really a fine- 
looking gentleman, marry such a witch of Endor 

as she is.” 

6 


100 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 


“ I can tell you,” said Aunt Patty, “ for I heard 
him tell Mr. Worth all about it one night when I 
was fhere and they thought I was asleep. They 
had been talking about books, and everything one 
can think of, when Mr. Worth told him that he 
wondered to see a man of his talents and education 
willing to live so retired, and that he would assist 
him in choosing a situation more suited to his cha- 
racter. He said all he wanted was leisure and 
retirement and leave to do just as he pleased. 
‘ Madame le Grande/ said he, 1 has peculiar 
tastes, and so have I. We promised, when we 
married, not to -interfere with each other, and not 
to let the world interrupt us. I was a poor young 
student and she a rich widow, who, taking a fancy 
to me, poor as I was, asked me to marry her, and 
you know I could not refuse/ ” 

a Oh how bold,” exclaimed Bessy; “I shouldn’t 
think a woman could be so bold.” 

“ Nor I, either,” replied Aunt Patty, with energy ; 
“ I wouldn’t ask a man to have me if he was made 
of diamonds and cased in gold. It is a sin and a 
shame, and a disgrace to the whole sex. If the 
truth were told, it is the way half the women get 
married, I do believe.” 

“So do I,” said Frank, “ and one of these days 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 101 

Victorine will ask me, and I will make a low bow, 
and say, Yes, I thank you, mademoiselle, with all 
my heart.’’ 

The children all laughed at Frank, and at the 
impression the little French gypsy had made on 
his imagination. The rest of Aunt Patty’s history 
was too discursive, and interrupted too often, to be 
able to follow it in a connected manner. Indeed, 
her youthful auditors manifested some symptoms 
of uneasiness before its close, and Estelle, falling 
fast asleep, suffered Aunt Patty’s snuff-box to drop 
on the carpet close by her kitten’s nose, who ran 
round the room sneezing at every step. 

In a few days, Mrs. Wharton and her children 
bade adieu to their friends and departed for their 
city home. Laura and Bessy exchanged warm 
professions of friendship and promises of a regular 
correspondence. Frank shocked Emma’s refined 
sense of propriety by giving Bessy and herself a 
loud kiss on the cheek, where modest roses flushed 
crimson at the unwonted freedom. 

“ Thank Heaven !” exclaimed Homer as the car- 
riage rolled from the door. 

And “ Thank Heaven !” repeated the soft voice 
of i Mrs. Worth, for at the same moment a letter 
arrived from her husband. 


CHAPTER V. 


A STRICKEN HOUSEHOLD . 

T was autumn, mild, rich, golden autumn. 



JL The corn, emerging from its golden husks, 
stood ripening in the mellow sunshine, the ver- 
milion apples glowed through the changing leaves, 
and the grapes hung in luxuriant clusters through 
the slender lattice-work that supported the vines. 
And then the harvest moon ! How full, how glori- 
ous was its light as its silver wheel seemed to 
poise itself on high, to lengthen the day for the 
anxious husbandman ! The Worth family con- 
templated that moon with throbbing hearts, for 
they knew it illumined the return of the be- 
loved traveller. He had not been successful in 
securing the fortune to which he had a just claim, 
and his last letter was written in a tone of un- 
wonted sadness, tylrs. Worth felt some lawful and 
natural regrets at the downfall of their hopes, but 
they were soon merged in the thought of her hus- 
band’s return. They had been so happy together 
before ; why should they sigh for more abundant 


( 102 ) 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


103 


wealth ? The children were too young to feel the 
full weight of disappointment. They cared for 
nothing but seeing their father once more, doubly 
endeared by long absence. Day after day they 
gathered under the meeting elms, which began to 
shed here and there a golden leaf, to watch for the 
approach of the stately figure whose departure 
they had there lingered to behold. Mrs. Worth 
sat at the window that looked down the street, and 
every horseman whose dark outline was defined in 
the horizon made her heart throb quick and her 
colour to come and go with beatings from that 
throbbing heart. She wondered at his delay. The 
exact day had never been appointed, for he had 
endeavoured to guard against disappointment by 
speaking in indefinite terms. Still, affection fixed 
on the earliest possible day, and apprehensions 
always inseparable from such intense affection 
sometimes flitted darkly before her imagination. 

“ I know father will be here to-day,” exclaimed 
Bessy, u for I had such a beautiful dream last night. 
I dreamed that he came back looking younger and 
handsomer than ever, and he had glorious wings on 
his shoulders, and he told us he was going to take 
us all to the loveliest country in the universe. Yet 
I felt sorry to hear him say so, for I knew I could 


104 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


never love any place so dearly as this, my own 
beautiful home.” 

“I don’t jkink that was a good dream/’ said 
Aunt Patty, shaking her head solemnly. “ I never 
dreamed of seeing anybody look like an angel but 
once, and that was Parson Broomfield the night 
before he died. It is a bad sign. You shouldn’t 
have looked after your father the morning he went 
away, children. I told you not to do it : that was 
another bad sign.” 

“ Hush, Aunt Patty !” said Edmund, observing 
Bessy’s eyes fill with tears and his mother turn 
very pale, notwithstanding she had no faith in 
dreams. “ I will not allow of any bad signs about 
father’s return. See, all nature is in smiles to wel- 
come him back, and our hearts and faces ought all 
to be dressed in sunshine. Mark me, dear mother, 
for a true prophet. He will be here to-night before 
the harvest moon goes down.” 

Mrs. Worth smiled as she looked upon her son, 
the blooming personification of hope and joy. She 
looked at all her children, and thought they had 
all grown handsomer and taller during their father’s 
absence. She remembered their filial devotion, and 
thought how it would gladden his heart to hear its 
recital. And Homer, too, gloomy and misanthropic 


AUNT PATTF’S SCRAP-BAG. 


105 


still, but ever affectionate to her, and ofttimes kind 
to Emma. She could present her dark-browed boy 
to his father and tell him that his parting words 
had not been uttered in vain — that though the 
evil spirit had not departed, like that which pos- 
sessed the bosom of Saul, it could be charmed with 
the music of love. Her eye wandered into the 
garden, and rested on the fragrant grapes which 
were not allowed to be culled till father’s hand had 
gathered the fairest and best; on the autumnal 
flowers whose blending purple, crimson and yellow 
emulated the rainbow dyes, and which were also re- 
served for the paternal eyes; then turned toward 
the heavens, so soft and cloudless in the day’s de- 
clining glory, and she felt as if everything breathed 
of welcome, hope and joy. She closed her eyes in 
a kind of blissful reverie, and the sweet remem- 
brances of youthful love came vividly back upon her 
soul. Softly she glided backward on the stream of 
time, and smiling images rose upon its banks, 
passed long ago, now brought nearer and nearer, 
brighter and still more bright. The scenes of her 
blooming girlhood, her sunny bridal hours, melted 
away into the mother’s joys and cares, the wife’s 
time-hallowed tenderness. A flood of gratitude 
and sensibility flowed over her heart. She was 


106 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


lost to surrounding objects, and started as from the 
musings of a dream when Homer touched her on 
the shoulder, holding a letter in his hand. 

“A letter !” exclaimed she, the chill of disap- 
pointment freezing her warm hopes. She took it 
hastily, without noticing the unusually gloomy brow 
of her first-born. It was a stranger’s hand, but 
the postmark bore the name of her husband’s 
southern residence. It was sealed with black. 
Had a coffin been suddenly placed in the centre of 
that family group, it could not have caused a more 
shuddering sensation than that strange, black- 
sealed letter. “ My God !” said Mrs. Worth, drop- 
ping it from her nerveless fingers, and her head 
leaned heavily on Homer’s shoulder. Edmund 
sprang to her side, but Homer, feeling a stern joy 
in being his mother’s first supporter in the mys- 
terious trial that might await her, frowned upon 
his brother and locked his arms closely round her. 

“Oh, mother,” exclaimed Bessy, wringing her 
hands, “what is the matter? How white she 
looks ! How blue her lips ! Emma, Emma, she 
is dying !” Estelle clung, weeping bitterly, to Aunt 
Patty, and Emma, pale and trembling, but self- 
possessed and thoughtful, ran into the house and 
brought hartshorn and cologne, and bathed her 


A TINT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 


107 


mother’s death-like face and cold hands. Edmund 
had taken the letter from the ground, and stood 
gazing at the black seal till it seemed as if a black 
pall covered the whole scene. It was the first 
object which met Mrs. Worth’s opening eyes. 
“ Death, death !” she groaned ; “ there is death in 
that letter : I cannot open it.” 

“ Perhaps, dear mother,” cried Edmund, with 
quivering lips, “ it is an accident. This may have 
been written since father’s departure, and the writer 
himself be in mourning.” 

a Open it,” said she, faintly ; “ I cannot do it.” 

Edmund broke the seal, while the paper shook 
and rustled in his trembling fingers. He had 
scarcely read three lines when, with a loud, heart- 
rending cry, he tossed the letter wildly from him 
and buried his face in his mother’s lap. That 
bitter cry was echoed again and again beneath the 
now desolate roof — the cry of orphanage and woe. 
Only one pale lip was silent, one breaking heart 
was still. 

Speechless and tearless Mrs. Worth was borne 
to her room in the arms of her weeping children. 
Speechless and tearless she lay during the live- 
long night, with the bright harvest moon shining 
dowQ into her chamber, as if in mockery of her 


108 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


unutterable grief. Kind neighbours came there, for 
that wailing cry had been heard, and the whole vil- 
lage was soon covered with mourning. The common 
benefactor and friend was no more — the friend of 
the widow and the orphan — and they came to weep 
with the new-made widow and fatherless. He died 
of one of the burning fevers of a southern clime, 
and his ashes reposed in a foreign soil. 

Wretched, desolate family ! plunged at once from 
such a height of hope to such an abyss of sorrow. 
How long was that first night of agony! How 
intolerable its silvery brightness! Edmund and 
Emma knelt on each side of their mother’s couch, 
with their faces buried in the counterpane, which 
became literally saturated with their tears. Once 
in a while they lifted their dimmed eyes to their 
mother’s face, but it looked so white and ghastly 
in the still moonshine they shuddered and again 
veiled their brows. Bessy lay by her mother’s side, 
her bright locks all dishevelled and drooping like 
the boughs of a weeping willow. So terrific was 
the shock to one of her ardent temperament that 
reason was for a while dethroned. She seemed to 
hold intercourse with invisible beings, and smiled, 
and made beckoning motions with her fingers, and 
sometimes laughed aloud — a horrible sound in that 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


109 


chamber of mourning. Homer stood in the win- 
dow with dry and bloodshot eyes, which were fixed 
gloomily, and even fiercely, on the clear night hea- 
ven, as if in defiance of the Power that had crushed 
all their spirits low. He remembered the hour 
when his soul had dissolved in a father’s parting 
embrace, when his deep, solemn accents murmured 
in his ear and he had committed to his charge so 
dear, so holy a trust. And now that revered form 
was cold and lifeless, that deep-toned voice was 
still, their home was indeed that of the widow and 
fatherless, and he must now be “ their pillar and 
their shield.” Though Homer sincerely mourned 
his father, whom he honoured above* all human 
beings, a feeling of independence, of premature 
manhood, of superiority over Edmund as the elder- 
born, the right of primogeniture investing him with 
something of paternal dignity, mingled strangely 
with his grief. “Oh that I were a man!” cried 
he to himself, clenching his hands tightly over his 
forehead. “ I will be one — I never will own an- 
other guardian. I myself will be the guardian of 
the household. My father thought me worthy of 
the trust.” 

Aunt Patty, though the kindest of human be- 
ings, knew nothing of those delicate shades of 


110 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


feeling which constitute the perfection of a refined 
character. She knew of no sympathy but what 
is expressed in words. She unconsciously planted 
daggers in the hearts of the children by asking 
the particulars of their father’s death, unable her- 
self to decipher a stranger’s writing. She tried to 
console her niece, but finding her efforts vain, she 
sat down with Estelle in her arms, who had 
sobbed herself to sleep, and was soon nodding 
wearily over her. 

Weeks passed by, and though wailing and 
lamentation had ceased, the sadness of the grave 
brooded over the household. The merry laugh, 
the bound ii% step, were heard no more ; the grapes 
hung withering on the vines; the apples fell un- 
heeded to the ground; the flowers faded away, 
ungatliered and forgotten; the yellow leaves of 
autumn fell faster and faster on the green grass 
that carpeted the yard, but no hand swept them 
away. Mrs. Worth moved about once more in the 
midst of her domestic duties — 

“ But oh, with such a freezing eye, 

With such a curdling cheek ; 

Love, love, of mortal agony, 

Thou, only thou, canst speak” 

She had not yet shed one tear. The fountains of 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


Ill 


sorrow seemed frozen in her bosom. It was not 
till the traveller’s trunks arrived, which he had 
packed with his own hands preparatory to his 
homeward journey, that the dry agony of grief 
found relief in tears. There were all the little 
memorials of love which the absent one had col- 
lected for those who waited his return — packets 
carefully folded and bearing the loved names on 
the envelope. There was the bag of calico pieces 
and Estelle’s little kitten deposited in a corner 
of the trunk, and beneath the kitten a beautiful 
snuff-box. At sight of this proof of remembrance 
and kindness, even Aunt Patty wept aloud. Mrs. 
Worth turned from the gifts which had been se- 
lected with a refined regard to her peculiar tastes 
and character, to clasp to her bosom the garments 
he had worn, to cover them with her kisses and 
her tears. The sorrow so long imprisoned in her 
aching heart now found impassioned utterance. 
She gathered her children alternately in her arms 
and embraced them again and again, as if she feared 
they were to be torn from her by violence. 

“ Oh, my loved Ones !” cried she, u ye are orphans 
— sad, desolate orphans. He who was my guide 
and my strength as well as yours is taken from us, 
to .return no more for ever. Our once happy home 


112 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP- BAG. 


is as a grave to us — the world nothing but a wil- 
derness. Oh that his grave were mine! He is 
gone, and with him life, joy and hope.” 

“We are left, mother,” said Edmund, in half- 
reproachful accents — “ we are left to love, cherish 
and protect you.” 

“Protect!” repeated Homer, looking darkly at 
Edmund ; “ to protect my mother is my right, and 
I will yield it to no one.” 

“ God is left, dear mother,” said Emma, softly, 
lifting upward her meek eyes ; “he will never 
leave nor forsake thee. He will protect us all.” 

Homer turned aside and dashed a tear from his 
haughty eye. He felt the pious rebuke of his 
gentle sister, and the accusing spirit was aroused in 
his bosom. 

“Father of mercies,” exclaimed Mrs. Worth, 
bowing her head upon her hands in the humility 
of a chastened and broken spirit, “forgive my 
impious murmurs and give me strength to live for 
my children.” 

The widow’s prayer was heard. Let it be sup- 
posed that several years have glided by, and see 
what changes they have marked in the family 
which we have introduced in the bloom of child- 
hood and adolescence. 


CHAPTER VI. 


EDMUND'S DEPARTURE. 

A FTER a lapse of three years, we will present 
another family picture to the eye of the 
reader, if it has not become weary of gazing at the 
last. Mrs. Worth is seated by the glowing fire- 
side of a New England winter, whose warmth 
reflects a colour on her now pallid cheek. The 
sable dress, the thoughtful brow, the mild yet 
serious eye, proclaim that widowhood of the heart 
which time cannot change. Standing by her side 
and leaning against the mantel-piece is a tall, com- 
manding-looking youth with dark, gloomy brow 
and eyes of intense lustre. ’Tis Homer, by that 
gloomy brow and those peculiar, beaming eyes. 
With his father’s lofty stature and unusual dignity 
of mien, he retains his own striking, misanthropic 
face — a face that exhibits only too faithfully the 
dark workings of his soul. His brother stands on 
the opposite side, less tall, less stately, but wearing 
even in a more remarkable degree that air of 
princely grace which distinguished his early boy- 


114 


AUNT TATTY’S SCRAP- BAG. 


hood. His hair and eyes are darkened, and were 
a painter to seek for a personification of that age 
when youth and manhood seem at strife, he could 
not rest upon a more engaging figure than that of 
Edmund Worth. 

The brothers now meet at the maternal fireside. 
It is the college vacation, and consequently a holi- 
day at the homestead. But where are the pale, 
spiritual-looking Emma and the fair, sunny-tressed 
Bessy? Has death again entered the domestic 
circle and destroyed the sweet blossoms of child- 
hood as well as the strength and hopes of man? 
No; Emma, in pursuance of the advice of their 
physician, has accepted the invitation of a southern 
relative, and is passing the winter in a more genial 
clime, and Bessy is at length realizing some of the 
dreams of her ardent imagination in the gay home 
of Laura Wharton. It is the first time she has 
yielded to the pressing entreaties of her friends, 
who, instead of releasing her during her brothers’ 
vacation, insist upon their meeting her under their 
own roof to enjoy the festivities of the Christmas 
holidays. 

Aunt Patty still occupies her usual corner, and 
Estelle is faithful to her first love, though the out- 
line of her chubby face is softened and has as- 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


115 


sumed a more intellectual character. Aunt Patty 
is still her oracle, the recipient of all her childish 
joys and sorrows. 

But who is that dark-haired girl seated at the 
table plying her needle with such grace and dex- 
terity, yet ever and anon lifting up from her work 
eyes of such flashing brightness they almost startle 
the beholder? Do you remember Victorine, whose 
tangled locks and gypsy-looking face and dingy 
flowered robe were the admiration of the mocking 
Frank? Her mother, the queen of slovens, is no 
more, quietly reposing in congenial dust. Monsieur 
le Grande is returned to his native France, and 
Victorine, the orphan and the heiress, is under the 
guardianship of Mrs. Worth, whom she loves with 
a devotion that defies the power of language to 
express. Something of unusual interest seems to 
occupy the minds of all present. Victorine has 
dropped her work on her lap, and gazes on Ed- 
mund with an earnest, inquiring expression, while 
Homer’s eyes are fixed on her, as if unconscious of 
the object on which they rest. Mrs. Worth looks 
down in deep, revolving thought, and Silence seems 
to have folded her wings by that glowing fireside. 

“ I will not go, mother/’ at length said Edmund, 

“if it pains you too much to give consent. Mr. 

, 7 


116 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


Selwyn would not ask too great a sacrifice of 
you.” 

“ I do not wish to consult my own feelings at 
all,” replied Mrs. Worth, “but your advantage. 
The offer is so generous, so unexpected, it involves 
so many dependencies, I hardly know what to say. 
I tremble at the idea of seeing a loved one de~ 
part to a distant land.” The moistened eye and 
quivering lips spoke eloquently of the past. 

“ I will not go, dear mother, if it makes you un- 
happy,” repeated Edmund, seating himself by her 
side. “ I would forego every advantage and crush 
every ambitious hope rather than make you a prey 
to anxiety. Mr. Selwyn will be here to-night^ 
decide for me to him.” 

“ Will you resign the certainty of the first hon- 
ours of the university?” asked Homer. “ Who 
will wear your laurels if you relinquish them ?” 

“ I will bequeath them to you, brother,” replied 
Edmund, smiling, “if you are not already bur- 
dened with the weight of your own.” 

“ I will win my own laurels, or never wear 
them,” replied Homer, coldly. “ I am content to 
be second to Edmund in everything, or rather I 
ought to be, since nature has willed it so.” 

“Neither nature nor justice nor affection has 


AUNT PATTY'S SCPAP-BAG. 


117 


willed it,” cried Edmund, warmly. “You deserve 
a higher rank than myself, and nothing but mod- 
esty and self-distrust prevents you from being aware 
of it. I feel more proud of your reputation than 
I do of my own, Homer.” 

“ I believe you, on my soul I do,” cried Homer, 
with one of those sudden bursts of feeling which 
sometimes illuminated his dark countenance, “but 
I am not the less wretched on that account.” 

“Believe me once again, dear Homer,” cried 
Edmund, earnestly grasping his hand, “when I tell 
you that it is unjust, ungrateful and unwise to let 
such feelings as you indulge destroy your own hap- 
piness and that of your friends. If I do accept 
Mr. Selwyn’s offer, one of my strong motives is to 
remove from your path one whose fancied excel- 
lence makes you degrade yourself in your own es- 
timation.” The youth spoke with energy, and his 
father’s spirit looked forth from his eyes. Every 
good and noble feeling hu Homer’s breast was 
touched. Pie felt the moral superiority of Edmund, 
and writhed under the consciousness of that jealousy 
which withered his heart’s b€st affections. How 
mean, selfish and cold seemed his character in his 
own eyes ! How base and criminal the master- 
passion whose vassal he had become ! It was this 


118 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


which had embittered his father’s parting hour, 
clouded the bright prospects of his brother’s youth 
and saddened the home of his widowed mother. 
The remembrance of man’s first brotherhood was 
ever before him — severed by sin, crimsoned by 
blood, branded by a curse, pursued by suffering, 
exile and shame. A new feeling, scarcely acknow- 
ledged to himself and partaking of the intensity, 
the bitterness and the gloom of his character, was 
now taking possession of his opening manhood. 

Mr. Selwyn was announced. Mrs. Worth turned 
pale at his entrance. The moment for decision was 
come, and her heart throbbed, incapable of calm- 
ness. He had been the warm friend of her hus- 
band, was a man high in public confidence, just 
returned from foreign lands, where he had been 
officiating in some elevated national station, and 
was on the eve of departure for Europe, where he 
expected to remain for three years. He was very 
rich, a widower without children, and the friends 
of Edmund believed that the partiality he now 
manifested for him would eventuate in making him 
his heir. They warmly urged him to accept his 
generous offer. 

“ Trust him with me, madam,” said he, when he 
again renewed his proposal, “ and you never shall 


A TINT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


119 


repent the confidence reposed ; I will adopt him as 
my own son, and he shall have every advantage 
that wealth and opportunity can afford. Constantly 
engaged in public life, I have had but little leisure 
to feel the loneliness of a childless heart. Nor was 
it till I saw your son that I knew of what strong, 
unappeasable yearnings that heart is capable. Trust 
him with me, madam, and as far as possible I will 
make up to him what he has lost in his inestimable 
father.” 

Mrs. Worth wept as much from gratitude as 
memory. She looked at Edmund, and read his 
wishes in his kindling eyes. Could she be so sel- 
fish as to suffer her maternal tenderness to inter- 
fere with the brilliant prospects of her son? 
Ought she not rather to be proud of such a compli- 
ment to his talents, graces and virtues? ThaGod 
who had deprived him of the best of fathers had 
raised him up a powerful friend in this great and 
good man. Then Homer, too, her strange, way- 
ward first-born, perhaps the flame of fraternal 
jealousy would die away in his bosom unfed by 
the presence of its object. She thought of the 
Hebrew mother who committed her boy to the 
waves in the confidence of the God of Israel, and 
how this same feeble child became the lawgiver of 


120 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP- BAG. 


the Jewish nation and the chosen friend of the 
great I AM. Perhaps a glorious destiny awaited 
her son. She hesitated no longer. But that night, 
long after every eye was closed in sleep, she sat by 
her lonely hearth and dwelt on the sacrifice she 
was about to make. To live three years uncheered 
by the sunshine of his smile ! How long in pros- 
pective seemed these weary years ! and yet three 
long years were passed since, in the agony of a 
crushed and broken heart, she prayed for strength 
to live for her children. Prostrate on her knees, 
she renewed that prayer of faith. “ O my Father,” 
cried she, “ thou hast permitted me to live for 
them, but let me not ask that they may live for 
me. Let me commit them into thy hands. Do 
with them whatsoever seemeth good in thy sight.” 

"When she rose from her knees, she found herself 
directly opposite the portrait of her husband, and 
the features, softened by the pale lamplight, 
seemed to smile sadly down upon her. That pic- 
ture, since his death, had been removed to the 
sacred retirement of her own chamber. There it 
met her first waking, her last closing glance. There 
its deep, still eyes ever followed hers, triumphing, 
in their pictured rays, over the mists and shadows 
of the tomb. It was a perfect likeness ; the canvas 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 1-21 

lived, breathed, spoke; Death was cheated of his 
prey. 

Every thought was now merged in the absorb- 
ing one of Edmund’s departure. Aunt Patty, 
whose ruling passion had lost none of its strength, 
expected samples of all the royal robes on the 
other side of the Atlantic. Yet, after having made 
the request, she recollected that it must be a bad 
sign, as she had given a bag to Mr. Worth and it 
came only as a sad memento of his death ; she told 
Edmund he might bring them of his own accord, 
but she would not ask for them. Neither would 
she allow Estelle or Victorine to give him any 
parting gifts of affection, as they were henceforth 
bad signs , in her opinion. But Victorine plied her 
unwearied fingers to assist Mrs. Worth, and seemed 
to supply both Emma’s and Bessy’s place. Ed- 
mund was to pass through Boston and meet Bessy 
there, but Emma was too remote in her southern 
home to know of the change in her brother’s 
destiny. She was gathering health and strength 
in the land of the “ dew-dropping south,” and her 
mother would not hasten her return. 

“ You would do anything in the world for 
Edmund,” said Homer to Victorine as he sat 
watching her while she marked his initials oil a 


122 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


packet of linen. “You do not mean that he 
shall forget you.” 

“ I hope not, indeed,” replied she, quickly, “ for 
I am sure I never shall forget him. What shall 
we do without him ? He is the life and joy of the 
whole house. I believe I shall sit down and take 
snuff with Aunt Patty, and look over all the 
scraps she has gathered since the world began. I 
shall have no one to talk with when he is gone, for 
I cannot think of intruding my folly on your dear, 
sad mother.” 

“ I suppose you will not condescend to talk with 
me,” said Homer, drawing his chair back as he 
spoke. “ I know I have nothing light or amusing 
to say, but I should think a sensible person might 
sometimes like grave things.” 

“ Oh, I should like to talk to you, of all things,” 
cried Victorine, laughing, “but you have such a 
terrific countenance, and look so grand and lofty, 
you frighten every idea out of my head. Now, 
Homer, don’t be angry, but you are exactly like 
Lara, whose description Edmund read last evening. 
Don’t you recollect it ? 

‘ He stood, a stranger in this breathing world, 

An erring spirit from another world, 

A thing of dark imaginings/ etc. 


, A UNT PA TTY *S SCRAP-BA O. 123 

Such beings do splendidly in poetry, but they won’t 
pass in every-day life.” 

Victorine had all the Frerich vivacity of manner 
and grace of motion which was conspicuous in her 
in childhood, when slovenliness obscured her per- 
sonal beauty. She was the only one in the house- 
hold who dared to jest with Homer. Every one 
else stood in awe of the young misanthrope ; even 
his mother, fearing to wound his too sensitive 
nature, never ventured to treat with levity his 
gloomy paroxysms. Victorine alone, like the 
harmless lightning playing over the thunder-cloud, 
gilding its dark edges with the flame of youthful 
wit and merriment. 

“ The Ethiopian cannot change his skin nor the 
leopard his spots,” said Homer, a transient smile 
most beautifully illuminating his countenance; 
“ neither can I smile like Edmund.” 

“Oh, if you knew how smiles became you,” 
interrupted she, “you would not make them so 
rare. It is like noon breaking on midnight. 
There ! don’t frown again, for I didn’t say that to 
please you, but for the sake of a metaphor. I 
don’t care, Homer, whether you smile or frown : 
I’ll laugh when you’re angry and smile when 
you smile ; but were you in real sorrow, I would 


124 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


pity you and weep with you to your heart’s 
content.” 

“I’ll tell you, Victorine, why I so seldom 
smile,” replied he : “ it is because no one loves me. 
From my first remembrance of feeling I had a 
consciousness of something about me cold and re- 
pelling. I felt that I could not inspire sympathy 
or love, and I was too proud to seek as a favour 
what was denied me as a right.” 

“ I thought you cared not to be loved,” said 
Victorine, more seriously than she had hitherto 
spoken. “ I thought you disdained the very idea 
of being loved, even by your own sisters.” 

“ I !” repeated he, vehemently. “ I would walk 
over burning ploughshares, endure the tortures of 
the rack and wheel, I would bear all the agonies 
that man can inflict or feel, for even the hope to be 
loved as Edmund is. I care not to be loved ! The 
dread, the fear, the certainty of never having been, 
of never being loved, is the secret of my misan- 
thropy and despair. I would willingly die to-mor- 
row to be drawn, even this day, as near to the 
heart of one human being as Edmund is.” 

“ Strange,” said Victorine to herself as Homer, 
ashamed of the vehemence of his emotion, abruptly 
left the room— “ strange that his heart should 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


125 


seem to be filled with hatred when it is only yearn- 
ing after love ! I thought he was wrapped scorn- 
fully up in himself, and disdained all mankind. 
Well, I am sure we will all love him, if he will 
let us.” 

Victorine, domesticated as a child with the two 
brothers, looked upon them both with feelings sim- 
ilar to a sister, and addressed them with the free- 
dom of one of an exceedingly ardent temperament ; 
she suffered her affections to flow out bounteously 
on every object which excited their interest. She 
had once loved her cats and dogs to idolatry, but 
now her more refined taste and cultivated under- 
standing revolted from the thought of bestowing 
upon them the caresses due only to human beings. 
She had loved her mother and mourned her loss, 
but Mrs. Worth seemed to her an -angel of light, 
moving in a purer and holier atmosphere, and to 
diffuse on every object around her a spirit of purity 
and holiness. Much was said when this wild, 
neglected but singularly accomplished child was 
received into her family, and some even dared to 
attribute the kindness to mercenary motives, know- 
ing the reputed wealth of the girl. “ She can 
never get the tangles from her hair,” said one. 
Victori lie’s hair was now remarkable for its glossy 


126 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


waves. u Her skin will never become fair,” said 
another. Victorine’s complexion was now that of 
a pure, clear, delicate brunette. u She will never 
learn to dress like a lady,” cried a third. Vic- 
torine was now proverbial for her maidenly neat- 
ness and taste in dress. People said Mrs. Worth 
had wrought a miracle, but it was only a miracle 
of love. Perhaps Victorine herself was destined 
to work one as astonishing and as unhoped for. 

It was a sad hour for Edmund when he bade 
adieu to his mother, but as one parting has been 
described, this shall be omitted in the family 
sketch. Aunt Patty would not suffer an eye to 
follow him as he passed over the threshold, but 
when she recollected that it was Friday — bad Fri- 
day, that ill-omened day — her superstitious fears 
became so dark they infected the whole household. 
It was the day Mr. Selwyn had appointed; his 
business would not admit of delay, and he was not 
a man to whom one would avow such appre- 
hensions. 

The travellers stopped at Mrs. Wharton’s that 
Edmund might bid farewell to his sister Bessy. It 
was their resting-place for the night, and we can- 
not resist the temptation of introducing another 
family picture. The years which had added dig- 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 


127 


nity and height to Homer and Edmund had not 
gone by without many a fair gift to the inmates of 
this household, not excluding their young guest, 
the blue-eyed Bessy. Frank was a tall, handsome, 
gay, rather dashing collegian, full of fun and frolic 
and reckless good-nature, and Laura a fair, fash- 
ionable-looking maiden, dressed rather beyond her 
years, but with exquisite taste, and perfectly an 
fait in all the courtesies and graces of society. But 
Bessy was the most beautiful, blooming, poetic- 
looking creature that ever adorned the prose reali- 
ties of life, beautiful as the dreams of our own 
bright fancy, and surely nothing -could go beyond 
it. Have you ever seen a picture with a kind of 
soft shadow floating over it? — a mist, as it were, re- 
posing on its depth of light and shade? So it was 
with Bessy’s face. It was brilliant from the clear- 
ness and transparency of its colouring, pensive 
from the softness and exquisite delicacy of linea- 
ment and expression. And her hair still curled 
and rippled and sported round her brow and about 
her neck in the unshorn, unfettered freedom of her 
infantile beauty. Bessy knew that she was beau- 
tiful, for flattering tongues, fond gazing eyes and 
faithful mirrors had too often repeated this truth. 
But the consciousness of beauty did not, as is fre- 


128 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 


quently the case, inspire gayety in her. She had 
an image of ideal beauty in her soul so much 
brighter and purer that she yearned after its reali- 
zation with unutterable longings. She had wit- 
nessed the scenes which Laura described so glow- 
ingly, and they all seemed cold and artificial, de- 
void of intellectual life. The conversation which 
she heard sounded so vapid, false and senseless she 
could not be interested in it. She was afraid to 
express herself with that fervour and beauty of 
language peculiar to her, lest she should be thought 
extravagant and affected; so with a treasury of 
rich, burning, glorious thoughts within, she gener- 
ally sat silent and abstracted, pensive and some- 
times even sad. Her silence was imputed to youth 
and timidity. No one imagined what a peopled 
world of her own she w r as inhabiting. No one 
dreamed of the depth of feeling, the fire of imagi- 
nation and the power of intellect embodied in that 
cherubic form. 

“ How beautiful is your sister Bessy !” exclaimed 
Mr. Selwyn. “ I have not seen her since she was 
a little child. I wish it were possible to take her 
with us ; she should have superior advantages. I 
have seen much of the world and the beauties of 
different climes, but never have beheld so lovely a 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


129 


countenance. If she were my daughter, I would 
be proud to present her at all the courts of 
Europe.” 

The unconscious Bessy at this moment ap- 
proached and put her arm lovingly in her 
brother's. 

“ What do you think Mr. Selwyn is saying of 
you?” said Edmund. “He wishes you could go 
to Europe with us. How would you like to travel 
on classic ground, to see the 

* Isles of Greece, the isles of Greece, 

Where burning Sappho loved and sung’ ?” 

The colour on Bessy's cheeks deepened to 
crimson. 

“ Oh, dear brother, can I indeed go with you ? 
Is Mr. Selwyn serious? To Europe ! To Italy, to 
the land of love and song! Ah! I see that you 
are sporting with my enthusiasm, by the smile on 
Mr. Selwyn's lips.” 

“ If I had a female friend of sufficient age and 
standing to be your protectress, and whom I could 
ask to accompany us, you should go,” replied Mr. 
Selwyn. “ But Edmund shall take you across the 
Atlantic yet, if your classic enthusiasm does not 
grow cool as your heart expands.” 


130 


AUNT TATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 


“ I thought the heart had an expansive power,” 
answered Bessy, smiling. 

“ The enthusiasm of the head and the warmth 
of the heart are different, as you will one day ex- 
perience, but not, I trust, before we return, for if 
the heart should twine itself round some new sup- 
port, it would cling so tightly the wings of enthu- 
siasm would flutter in vain to bear you away.” 

“ There is no danger of my heart clinging more 
closely around any one than Edmund,” replied 
Bessy, “ and one of these days he is to build me a 
small Grecian temple, and adorn it with statuary 
and paintings, and shade it ‘ with bonny-spreading 
bushes/ and then we are to live together the hap- 
piest brother and sister in the world. Homer and 
Emma are to dwell in some baronial castle, lonely, 
grand and inaccessible, where the walls are mouldy 
with the damps of ages and the midnight shadows 
are peopled with apparitions.” 

“A few years hence,” said Mr. Selwyn, “your 
castles in the air will be made of very different 
materials;” and as he looked upon these two 
charming beings thus linked together by the ties 
of affection, the strongest, the fondest they yet had 
known, he sighed to think what bitter lessons life 
might have in store for them when they learned 


AUNT TATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


131 


the strength of that love which is the over-master- 
ing passion of the human heart. 

“ What are you talking about ? — Grecian temples 
and baronial castles ?” said Frank, who, with Laura, 
now joined the trio. “ I have no idea of these ex- 
clusives, and whether you live in temple, castle, 
cottage or cabin, I shall be certain to squeeze in as 
priest, warder, gardener or wood-cutter.” 

“Oh, you would spoil all Bessy’s poetry and 
sentiment,” said Edmund, laughing. “You are 
too much of the earth, earthy ; you could not live 
on nectar and ambrosia, and Bessy will have no 
grosser viands at her table.” 

“ Now, Bessy and I are the very persons to live 
together,” said Frank ; “ as I am earthy, I should 
bring her down from the skies occasionally to hold 
communion with me, and she, being of heaven, 
heavenly, would draw me after her ; so the two 
forces, constantly acting, would produce at last the 
right equilibrium.” 

“ I thought Victorine was your heroine,” cried 
Laura, “ you admired her so much in her beautiful 
flowered dress and fancy hair, as you call it. They 
say she is quite bewitching now.” 

“ I will leave Victorine for Homer. He is 
grand, gloomy and peculiar, and she bright, 


132 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


sparkling and gay. There should always be a 
contrast, to produce that delightful equilibrium I 
was speaking of just now.” 

“ Who will contrast with me, brother?” asked 
Laura. “ You have entirely slighted me.” 

“ There is no one left for you but Edmund, and 
he is entirely too perfect to contrast with any one, 
unless it is the witch of Endor herself. I don’t 
know you yet, Laura, but I believe you have more 
character than we dream of ; you are trying hard 
to be a fine lady, but you are meant for something 
better or worse, after all. Upon the whole, you and 
Edmund would do admirably together; as for 
Homer, he is the hero of the drama, the Corsair, 
the Paul Clifford, the Charles de Moor, for whom 
half a dozen maidens may yet die.” 

“And what will you do for poor Emma ?” said 
Bessy, amused at Frank’s arrangements for the 
future. “ There is no one good enough for 
Emma.” 

“ Emma !” repeated Frank. “ Oh ! I forgot 
Emma. Though she is so young, she is so thought- 
ful and pious she always seemed to me like old 
folks. I’ll give her to Mr. Selwyn, for I remem- 
ber her saying one day he was the handsomest man 
she ever saw, except her father.” 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


133 


Mr. Selwyn blushed at the compliment, but 
looked kindly on the bold, gay youth who dared 
to utter it. He said he intended to have a patri- 
archal establishment, and when they were all 
married, they should come and live with him, and 
he hoped to see their children’s children even unto 
the third and fourth generation. He pondered 
Frank’s sayings in his heart. “Let us see a few 
years hence,” thought he, “ whether he has spoken 
in the spirit of prophecy. These girls and boys 
will then be men and women, and these words of 
jest may be remembered as the shadowing forth of 
their future destiny.” 


CHAPTER VII. 


THE RETURN. 

S HALL we look over Bessy’s shoulder while 
she reads a letter from Emma, dated about 
the time when Edmund, unknown to her, began 
his transatlantic tour? We should like to see her 
impressions of a southern life as contrasted with 
her northern home. 

“ Dear Bessy : I can scarcely realize that I am 
addressing you in the very depth of winter, for 
gales soft as summer are fanning my cheek. To be 
sure, there is a bright fire glowing in the chimney, 
but the doors and windows are all open, and Mrs. 
Woodville, or Aunt Woodville, is sewing in the 
piazza. I can imagine you all gathered round the 
blazing hearth, shivering if the door is accidentally 
left ajar, with your listed windows and doors, your 
banks of tan round the walls of the house, your 
deep white paths through the drifted snow, and all 
the chill and paraphernalia of winter. We have 
the music of sweet singing-birds, you the jingling 

of the merry-going bells. There are beautiful 

( 134 ) 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


135 


roses blooming in the garden, such as we cherish at 
home as rare exotics, protecting them from every 
breath of winter. Oh, Bessy, you need not wonder 
that I feel like a new being when such frail, del- 
icate things as flowers bloom fearless and unharmed 
by frost or cold. My breath no longer labours in 
my bosom : it comes and goes without my knowing 
it ; and my heart no longer throbs wearily against 
my aching side. Aunt Woodville is very kind to 
me ; she sends me out every morning to ride before 
breakfast on a little pony, accompanied by Uncle 
Jack as my gallant. ?ou must know I have as 
many uncles and aunts as there are negroes on the 
plantation, and I have already become so much 
attached to them I am very willing to give them 
that endearing title. They will do anything in 
the world for Miss Emma, i Bless her little heart !’ 
they say. You know the prejudices I had against 
negroes before I came, but I find them so kind and 
pleasant I fear I shall like them better than our 
own white servants. Aunt Charity is just coming 
up the steps with a bucket of cold water balanced 
on her head, her right hand touching the edge of 
the pail, her left resting on her hip. You cannot 
think what a picturesque and graceful attitude this 
is, and could you see half a dozen of them walk- 


136 


AUNT TATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


ing from the spring, bearing in this manner their 
brimming buckets, you would be convinced that 
labour did not necessarily bow the figure and de- 
prive it of all grace of motion. I used to think 
rich southern planters had nothing to do, with so 
many slaves to wait upon them, but I am sure my 
dear mother would think it a weary task if she 
had to carry about a big bunch of keys like Aunt 
Woodville, and keep so many people at work 
about her. Her house is as neat as wax, and I 
could not use a better comparison, for her summer 
parlour and bedroom have waxed floors, which 
shine so that you may see your face in them, and 
they are so smooth that there is great danger of 
your sliding down. In the large hall there is a 
little shelf where a bucket of cool water always 
stands — an object of perfect admiration to me. The 
wood is as white as snow, and it is hooped with 
burnished brass, and there is a dipper in it made 
of the cocoanut shell, rimmed with silver. This 
is a trifling thing to mention, but . it seems to me 
more characteristic of the south than anything else. 
I will relate one anecdote for Estelle’s amusement. 
"We have a little black girl here of the name of 
Sukey who waits particularly on me. The other 
day I asked her how long it would be before 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


137 


supper was ready, as I wanted to take a walk. 
‘ Oh/ said she, ‘ it will be a good little heap of a 
piece of a while.’ But this is not my anecdote: 
one evening soon after my arrival, as I was sadly 
wandering about in the yard, I heard Aunt Charity 
calling in the’ most mournful accents on the name 
of Sukey ; again and again she repeated the sound. 
‘Is Sukey lost?’ said I, beginning to be anxious 
for my little waiting-maid. ‘No, I hope not,’ 
said she ; ‘ I always calls ’um home at night.’ 
‘ Does she go away so far every night ?’ said I. ‘ I 
should think she was , too small ; I wonder Aunt 
Woodville lets her.’ Here Aunt Charity showed 
her white teeth from ear to ear : ‘ Oh, Miss Emma, 
you are so funny ! Some of ’um little, some of ’um 
big ; misses don’t worry herself about ’um.’ I did 
not quite understand Aunt Charity, but hearing 
her continue to invoke Sukey so mournfully, I 
offered to go with her in search of the lost child. 
Aunt Charity stared at me a moment, then held 
tight by the fence and laughed and shook as only 
a negro can laugh and shake. ‘ It’s the cows, Miss 
Emma, the cows ; we all calls ’um Sukey.’ Uncle 
Woodville was so much amused at my mistake that 
he has called me Sukey ever since. 

‘ Dearest Bessy, the sweet briar enclosed in 


138 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP- BAG. 


this letter was plucked from my father’s grave. I 
have enclosed a sprig to my mother, as the most 
sacred, the most precious, of all earthly mementoes. 
Every evening, when it does not rain, I walk to 
this hallowed spot, and I feel as if your spirits 
were all hovering near me to hold communion with 
the sainted dead. When I first saw that grave, I 
thought my heart would break. I threw myself 
on the cold clay and clung to it as if it were the 
sacred body of our father given back to my arms. 
I called upon his name, but the sighing of the long 
grass alone sounded in my ears ; the chill of the 
damp earth penetrated to my very soul, and I re- 
membered the warm breast where I had once pil- 
lowed my head, and the contrast was agony. When 
I arose and looked up, the setting sun shed such 
a mild light on the shadows of that mournful place 
I felt that the world was not all darkness ; I recol- 
lected that beautiful passage of Scripture : ‘ And 
the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing 
in his beams.’ I no longer thought of my father 
as mouldering beneath the clods of the valley, but 
as an angel in heaven, more glorious than the sun, 
yet ever becoming more and more glorious. Many 
a time, dear Bessy, when I went to kneel by that 
grave of our father, I thought I should soon sleep 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 


139 


coldly and quietly by his dear side, and all uncon- 
scious as he there lies, it seemed to me that it would 
be a comfort to him t6 have his ‘ young moralist ’ 
reposing so near him. Oh how many dark and 
sweet thoughts were blended in my mind ! I 
w r anted, if I died, to be buried in the same coffin, 
to be wrapped in the same winding-sheet, and 
then, when the last trumpet should sound, the arms 
of my father would enfold me and bear me ten- 
derly to the mercy-seat of my Saviour and my God. 
Do not let mother see this part of my letter, for I 
fear it would make her sad. I would only bring to 
her the sweetest and holiest memories; I would tell 
her how lovely the pale rose of winter blooms on 
the soil that covers his ashes, how, like a celestial 
ministrant, the moon comes down and covers it 
with a silver pall, and makes the place of graves 
beautiful as the gate of heaven. I would tell her 
how every one here worships his memory, how the 
tongue of the African, as well as of the white man, 
grows eloquent in his praise. How I wish they 
could see Edmund, or you, Bessy ! I am such a 
poor, frail creature the only feeling I can excite is 
compassion, yet I am daily stronger and better; 
they tell me I am getting rosy. You know with 
what reluctance I left home, and what a poor return 


140 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 


I made for Uncle Woodville’s kindness, who came 
so much out of his way to induce me to accompany 
him back from the north. He had heard our dear 
father speak so tenderly of his invalid daughter, 
and of his wish that she should breathe the soft 
gales of the south ; the good man sought me out 
and would not be denied. Surely a kind Provi- 
dence directed his steps, for the sickly plant has in- 
deed revived, and rejoices in the sunshine and the 
dew. I am writing you a long letter, but so many 
things crowd for expression I cannot lay down my 
pen. I had a long letter from Homer last week. 
I cannot tell you how it affected me : it was very 
kind, but very melancholy ; he says we must live 
together, for I understand him better than any one 
else, and am not so selfishly happy as the rest of 
the world. Poor Homer! if he only knew how 
well we all loved him, he would not make us so 
sad as he does. Tell Aunt Patty that Aunt Wood- 
ville has collected a great many pieces of calico for 
her sc •p-bag, and has told me so many pleasant 
incidents connected with them I fear I cannot re- 
member them all ; tell her everybody here knows 
Aunt Patty, and loves her coo, for a certain some- 
body has talked a great deal about her, ar 4 I have 
no doubt she has felt her left ear burn very often — 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


141 


a sign, you know, that some one is praising her 
very hard. Dear little Estelle ! tell her she must 
water my geraniums and move them where the sun 
shines warmest in the day and the fire has diffused 
its heat at night. Oh, the sweet flowers of the 
south! yet I would give them all, even in their 
spring glory, for a glimpse of the snows that sur- 
round my northern home. One little circumstance, 
my beloved sister, I must not omit, though, if it 
affects you as it did me, this paper will be blotted 
with your tears. I was rambling in the woods that 
skirt the cultivated grounds, and stopped under a 
large beech that hung over a narrow stream, or 
branch, as it is here called. There was a gray 
trunk fallen just at the foot of this noble tree; I 
sat down and listened to the gurgling waters, when 
I caught a glimpse of letters engraved on the bark 
of the beech tree. First on the silver rind was the 
name of our beloved mother, then her children, 
from the first-born Homer to the little Estelle. 
Ah ! whose hand had carved these characters ? who 
had sat like me on that gray fallen trunk and 
thought of the dear ones left behind? Where is 
the traveller now ? Where I perchance may soon 
be, and one of those loved ones, it may be my own 
Bessy, may wander to this spot, and sit under this 


142 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


spreading beech and weep for me as I have wept 
for him. I have touched a sad chord, but I did 
not intend it. This is such a place for memory it 
is difficult to be cheerful and thoughtful at the same 
time, yet you must not think of me as otherwise 
than happy. If I were not so, I should be the 
most ungrateful being in the world. Forgive my 
egotism ; I have written so much of myself I am 
ashamed to look back. But of whom do you wish 
to hear in this land of strangers more than your 
own affectionate 

“ Emma ?” 

We love family letters, and would gladly tran- 
scribe the correspondence of the brothers and sis- 
ters during their separation from each other. But 
we fear others may not have congenial tastes, and 
would find them too unvarying and quiet to satisfy 
{hat love of excitement which is fed by stirring 
incidents and unfolding passions. Edmund wrote 
volumes in his long, epistles, but the ground he 
travelled was classic, and every particle of dust on 
which he trod has been made sacred by the chil- 
dren of genius and of song. His pages would 
present nothing new to the reader, though they 
were read with rapture and enthusiasm by those 
to whom they were addressed. Bessy was his par- 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


143 


ticular correspondent, and she now poured forth 
her soul in harmonious numbers, for she had dis- 
covered she had the gift of song. Her spirit, like 
the iEolian harp, responded in music to every breath 
that swept over it, and thrilled with transport at 
its wild melody. 

u Charming child !” Mr. Selwyn would exclaim 
when he perused these beautiful effusions of youth- 
ful genius; “she shall yet visit classic ground. 
She will be a Corinna without her imperfections.” 

The time of Edmund’s absence was shortened by 
one year in consequence of some new arrangements 
of Mr. Selwyn, and it is astonishing how quickly 
two years glided by, bringing back the young trav- 
eller to his native soil. It w^as rather more than 
two years, however, for when he left home it was in 
the depth of winter, and now it was in the full 
bloom of summer. As they approached the house 
in the hush of a moonlight evening, Edmund’s 
feelings became so intense he would not bear that 
even Mr. Selwyn should witness the meeting. He 
was no longer a boy, yet he knew that he should 
give way to boyish emotion, and leaping from the 
carriage, he jumped over the garden railing and 
opened a side gate, which brought him unobserved 
to the end of the piazza, where two couples sat in 


144 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


the moonlight at some distance from each other. 
Edmund stood still a moment, and contemplated 
these figures with a throbbing heart. The two 
nearest him were immediately recognized ; the 
dark brow of Homer was bent toward the up- 
turned face of Victor ine, whose brilliant eyes could 
never be mistaken for another’s. She leaned back 
against a pillar, and the vine that encircled it 
drooped its dewy leaves on her sable hair. There 
was something exquisitely graceful in the abandon- 
ment of her attitude and the contour of her head 
defined on the green curtain- work behind. He was 
talking in a deep undertone and she was listening, 
but her eyes wandered over the firmament as if 
troubled by the burning gaze of his. 

“ He loves her,” thought Edmund ; “ two years 
have not passed away in vain for him. Cod bless 
thee, my brother, and not only fill thy heart with 
love for her, but for me and all mankind !” 

His eyes turned to the other pair, who sat side 
by side at the other end of the piazza, equally ab- 
sorbed by etch other. That young female form 
could belong to no other than his sister Bessy. 
Such angel hair never adorned any other head but 
hers. And who was the young man that sat so 
near her that the night gale, as it fanned them, 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


145 


blew her ringlets against his cheek, that evidently 
inclined to meet their soft caress ? 

Edmund felt a sudden pang at sight of this 
stranger admitted to such near communron with 
his beautiful sister. He had been exiled from his 
maternal home, a wanderer to various climes, 
but he had brought back unchanged affections, a 
heart in which fraternal love was still the ruling 
principle. He returned to find himself supplanted 
as it were in the bosom of others. Homer and 
Victorine, Bessy and the stranger, thus sat in the 
silence of that moonlight eve as if the world con- 
tained no beings but themselves, and as if the 
moon revealed the secret of her glory alone for 
them. 

“ Where are my mother and Emma,” thought 
Edmund, catching the glimpse of a lamp through 
the white curtains of his mother’s window, u dear 
old Aunt Patty and darling Estelle ?” He turned 
softly, and passing through a grove of lilac trees, 
entered a side door, which was left open, and stood 
at the entrance of his mother’s room. She sat at a 
table reading. Letters were scattered around her 
which seemed to be his own, which she had been 
repcrusing. Time, as if charmed with her sweet, 
matronly graces, had touched her so gently that 


146 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


lie had not left the slightest impress of his defa- 
cing fingers. It was very thoughtless, very impru- 
dent, but Edmund could not resist the temptation 
of stealing noiselessly behind her chair and clasp- 
ing her in his arms before she was aware of his 
presence. The cry of joyful amazement that re- 
sounded through the house brought all its inmates 
but poor Aunt Patty gathered together in Mrs. 
Worth’s apartment. Even the stranger hurried 
to the door, but drew respectfully back, as if con- 
scious the scene should be sacred from intrusion. 
Emma and Estelle came flying down stairs in 
their loose white robes, which Edmund afterward 
declared were the most becoming dresses they had 
ever worn. 

“ Oh, Edmund, how tall you are grown !” u How 
sunburned you are !” “ How well you look !” 

“ When did you come ?” “ And how did you 

get in?” Such ejaculations were showered into 
his ears, while his hands were grasped by half a 
dozen pair of loving hands, and as many pair of 
arms tried to encircle his neck. 

“ Who would not cross the Atlantic for such a 
welcome home ?” cried he, in the midst of that soft 
prison of snowy arms. “ Emma, the south winds 
have blown kindly on you ; they have given colour 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


147 


and health to your cheek. And Bessy — ” He re- 
membered the stranger in the piazza, and looked 
earnestly upon her. She blushed, and leaned her 
face on his shoulder. “ Do you love no one better 
fhan Edmund yet?” 

“ Oh, no one in the world,” replied she, hastily ; 
“ ungrateful brother, to ask such a question, when 
my heart is aching from the very fulness of its joy 
and love !” 

“ Don’t you want to see Aunt Patty, Edmund ? 
— poor Aunt Patty ?” asked Estelle, sadly. 

“ Aunt Patty !” repeated Edmund, starting. 
“She is not dead?” 

; “ No,” cried Estelle, “ but she can’t walk any 
more, and has to stay in her own room all the time 
and sit in a big arm-chair. Come and see her, Ed- 
inund ; she told me to bring you up.” 

Estelle led her brother up the winding stairs 
to the chamber of Aunt Patty, while Emma and 
Bessy followed close behind. There sat Aunt Patty 
in the big arm-chair, a little table close beside her, 
on which lay her snuff-box and spectacles and a 
pile of books. Her head was drawn on one side, 
and her whole appearance spoke increased infirmity. 
Edmund was so much grieved at this unexpected 
change that he held her hand in silence, wl^ile she 

' 9 


148 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


shook his as if she would never release her grasp, 
smiling and ejaculating, “ How handsome you have 
grown ! How like a man you look ! As good as 
ever, I know ! Hid you bring some pretty pieces 
for poor old Aunt Patty ? Estelle is making them 
into a fine bed-quilt for me, so there will be no 
danger of their getting lost. I can’t walk about 
any more, but I’ve so many feet to run for me 
I hardly miss my own.” 

Edmund assured her that he had brought beauti- 
ful specimens of English and French silk and calico, 
and that he could tell her a great many anecdotes 
of ladies who wore similar dresses. In the morn- 
ing he would unpack his trunk and display his 
collection of European curiosities. Estelle longed 
not more impatiently for the morning’s dawn than 
Aunt Patty, whose strange ruling passion seemed to 
gather strength as her physical powers declined. 

Mr. Selwyn’s arrival was hailed with a joy which, 
though less vehement, was as heartfelt as that which 
greeted the return of Edmund. They greeted him 
as a benefactor, friend, almost as a father. Though 
he was certainly not a vain man, he could not help 
looking kindly at Emma, remembering Frank’s 
parting jests. Emma, whose affection for her father 
bordered on adoration, felt as if she could almost 


AUNT FATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


119 


worship the man who was his early friend and as- 
sociate. His character, too, was such as her serious 
and reflecting mind knew how to appreciate. Its 
philanthropy, its magnanimity, disinterestedness, 
justice, loftiness and piety constituted her idea of 
a Christian gentleman. Bessy compared him to the 
oak under whose shade the wayfaring man and the 
child find refreshment and rest, but Emma thought 
the beautiful similitude of Scripture, “ The shadow 
of a great rock in a weary land,” more striking. 
She loved the book of God, and as naturally sought 
its divine metaphors as the panting hart the cool- 
ing stream. 

The stranger of the piazza was introduced by 
the name of Vivian. In spite of his efforts to 
prevent it, Edmund could not help bowing coldly 
to one who seemed to have come so near the heart 
of Bessy. Who was he ? Whence came he ? By 
what right was he domesticated in the family circle ? 
Estelle, who dearly loved to tell news and create 
surprises, answered all these questions without his 
asking one. a I have got something to show you,” 
whispered she, mysteriously. “Come with me 
without letting Bessy see you, for that would spoil 
it all. Gliding before him with a lamp carefully 
shaded by her hand, she conducted him to a little 


150 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


back parlour which his father had occupied as a 
study. The books still remained as he had last 
arranged them, but everything else was changed. 
The windows were darkened by green curtains, 
drawn closely, except one, through which the moon 
looked, as a celestial amateur, on one of the purest 
productions of human art. In the centre of the 
room stood an easel, sustaining a canvas on which 
glowed the lineaments of an angel, a muse or a 
grace, just as the imagination of the gazer pleased 
to decide. The soft blue eyes were turned upward 
with a kind of wistful, languishing expression, as 
if they yearned after the heavenly and unseen, 
finding nothing amidst the earthly and the seen to 
satisfy the. cravings of the heart. The hair fell 
back, like a golden halo, around the calm, beaute- 
ous brow, melting away in the shadows of the 
background; the hands were clasped, as in the 
attitude of prayer, and gently raised above a circle 
of transparent, rose-tinted clouds that rolled over 
the foreground, threatening to veil the fair head 
w T ith their gauze-like folds. Edmund stood gazing 
so long at this picture that Estelle’s Land ached 
from holding the lamp, and she quietly deposited 
it on the floor. Though Edmund had not spoken 
one word, she knew that intense admiration closed 


AUNT PATTF’S SCRAP-BAG. 


151 


his lips, and there was something too sublime to 
her in his silence for her to dare to break it. As 
the lamplight receded, the moon’s rays fell glori- 
ously upon it, and the shadow of the lattice was 
reflected on the face. “ How beautiful !” at length 
exclaimed Edmund. “ How lovely ! What a 
perfect likeness, yet what an angel countenance ! 
Who is the artist ? He should be immortal !” 

“It’s Mr. Vivian,” said Estelle — “the gentle- 
man you saw here just now. He was travelling, 
and saw Bessy at church, and wanted to make her 
picture to cairy off to Italy. He’s painted one for 
himself, and this is for mother. He’s waiting to 
paint you too, for he heard mother say she would 
give all the world for your likeness when you were 
gone. And we all want him to paint mother, and 
I want him to take Aunt Patty.” 

Estelle paused to take breath, and to watch the 
effect of her wonderful communications. Edmund 
still kept his fascinated gaze on the illuminated 
canvas, thrilling under the magic spell of genius. 

“ Who and what is this young man ?” cried he 
again. 

“ It’s Mr. Vivian, I told you, brother,” repeated 
Estelle, a little impatiently ; “ he’s going to paint 
me in Aunt Patty’s lap, holding her snuff-box, 


152 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


and she’s to be sorting out pieces of calico. That 
big canvas there is for us.” 

“And what does he ask for all his pictures?” 
inquired Edmund. 

“ I don’t know/’ replied the little girl, thought- 
fully, “ but I heard him tell Bessy once that she 
would pay him for all. That is not fair, is it, 
brother?” 

“ And what did Bessy say ?” 

“ I didn’t hear what she said, but she turned 
away her head as if she didn’t like it ; I know I 
wouldn’t.” 

Edmund felt a soft arm twining round his, and 
looking down, he saw the sweet original of the 
picture at his side. 

“ Is it like me, brother ?” 

“ Yes ; but it makes my heart ache to look at 
that picture.” 

“ You don’t like it, then?” 

“ I could gaze on it for ever ; but, Estelle, my 
darling, take back the lamp to the parlour, and we 
will follow you directly. The moon gives light 
enough for us.” . 

Estelle took up the lamp and walked slowly out 
of the room, feeling somewhat slighted after the 
pains she had taken to exhibit the portrait. Ed- 


A TINT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


153 


mund drew his sister to the window, and once again 
repeated the earnest question, “ Who is this young 
man ?” 

“ He is an artist !” 

“ I know it, and a glorious one ! What else ?” 

“He is a poet. He writes divinely, as he 
paints.” 

“And what else, my sister ? Forgive this inqui- 
sition.” 

“ He is a devoted son and affectionate brother,” 
answered Bessy, in a firmer tone. “ He supports a 
widowed mother and orphan sister by the works of 
his genius.” 

“ If so, I honour him. And yet he is willing to 
linger here for weeks, asking no other recompense 
than my sister’s heart.” 

“Edmund!” * 

There were tears in Bessy’s voice, as some beau- 
tiful writer has expressed it, and Edmund’s heart 
smote him with a sense of unkindness. 

“I have been gone a long time, Bessy, and 
during my absence I have yearned after my sisters 
with undivided tenderness. I return and find a 
stranger occupying the place I left and supplanting 
me in the bosom of one, perhaps the best beloved. 
I may be a little jealous and selfish, but I am 


154 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


jealous for you also, and would not willingly yield 
my place to one who is not supremely worthy.” 

“ Your place, Edmund, will never be yielded to 
another. But the heart must be very narrow in- 
deed that has not room for any but brothers and 
sisters. It seems to me the more one loves, the 
more one'is capable of loving. I know but little 
by experience, but I believe the ocean’s waters can 
hardly be compared in breadth and depth to. the 
love of the human heart.” 

“ One question more, dear Bessy — ” 

“ No, no, Edmund ; no more questions to-night. 
But one thing, I pray you : do not think less of 
Vivian because he happened to imagine Bessy’s 
foolish face would look well on canvas, and wished 
to retain it as a specimen of his art, or that he is 
willing to .gratify a fond mother’s feelings by leav- 
ing her an image which may remind her of me when 
I have passed away, like a dream, as though I had 
never been. Come, they will be apgry at my keep- 
ing you here so long.” 

The brother and sister went out hand in hand, 
and Edmund felt, dearly as he had loved Bessy be- 
fore, the interest he now felt for her was far deeper 
than ever. Vivian, the artist, the poet, the lover, 
became henceforth "an attractive study, and the 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


155 


more he studied, the less he wondered at the in- 
fluence he had acquired over the ardent and imagi- 
native Bessy. When they returned to the family 
circle, Mr. Selwyn came forward with Vivian, and 
again introduced him to Edmund as a young friend 
of his whom he recognized as having met in Italy, 
and of whose reputation, as an American, he was 
very proud. The tone of confidence and approba- 
tion in which Mr. Selwyn spoke was a volume of 
recommendation to Edmund, and his cold bow was 
exchanged for a cordial pressure of the hand and a 
glance of unrepressed admiration. The evening 
passed_away, to use Bessy’s favourite expression, 
like a fairy dream. There was something in Ed- 
mund’s manner that had the power of enchantment, 
and his eyes, like the sun, gladdened all that they 
shone upon. Even Homer’s cavern-like soul 
obeyed, this night, the magical open sesame of his 
smile, and suffered some of its hidden diamonds 
and gems to glitter on the beholder. Music added 
its charm to the sweet socialities of the hour. Vic- 
torine’s piano, Edmund’s flute and Vivian’s violin 
made a most harmonious concert, and the soft, 
clear voices of the sisters chimed in like an angel 
chorus. Victorine played, as she did everything 
else, with all her heart and soul ; her fingers flew 


156 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


over the keys with a rapid, lightning touch, wild 
and thrilling, or lingered with a passionate depth 
of tone that made the heart ache and sigh from a 
consciousness of its own capabilities of love and 
sorrow. She was usually pale, but when she 
played or sang, her cheeks crimsoned and her lips 
glowed as if a fire were kindled and flaming 
within. Homer stood behind her chair, gazing 
upon her image reflected in the mirror. The harp 
of the shepherd minstrel had no more power over 
the evil spirit that possessed the first king of Israel 
than the music of Vietorine on Homer. If life 
were made of music, and Vietorine was the min- 
strel, Homer would have been the most Amiable of 
human beings. Edmund, whose light breath war- 
bled through the flute, making most ravishing 
strains, contemplated the other musicians with un- 
conscious interest. Homer and Vietorine must now 
be inseparably connected in his thoughts ; she must 
be to him nothing more than a sister, as she had 
been in his more boyish years. He caught him- 
self indulging in a transient feeling of envy that 
Homer had inspired love in this fascinating and 
impassioned being, leaving nothing but cold, calm 
friendship for him. Then he rejoiced that the fra- 
ternal' jealousy which had so much embittered their 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


157 


life would probably yield to the passion whose 
vassal he now was. He remembered the airy 
castles Bessy had built on the evening of his de- 
parture ; the Grecian temple, the statues and pic- 
tures, where were they now ? All vanished, and an 
altar fed with burning incense risen in their place. 
And Homer’s baronial castle, where Emma was to 
preside, with its raised drawbridge and deep moat ? 
It was now transformed to a moonlit bower, 
where the aroma of flowers and the breath of 
music mingled together and intoxicated the soul 
with love. He recollected Frank’s prediction with 
regard to himself : that could never be ; Laura was 
too artificial and vain ; she could no more fill the 
capacities his heart had for loving than a shallow 
rill could fill the ocean’s bed; he never should 
meet one who could. He would never marry, but 
give his talents to the world, his affections to his 
mother and Emma, who would never marry, like- 
wise, but be the sweetest and best old maid that 
ever lived, and the young Estelle should be the 
darling of both. 

While Edmund thus builds up new castles on 
the ruins of the old, let us exercise our fairy priv- 
ilege of reading the thoughts of others, and see 
what Mr. Selwyn is thinking of while he keeps 


158 


AUNT FATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


time with his foot to the changing music. He, too, 
remembered Bessy’s and Frank’s gay prophecies, 
and thought how seldom the dreams of youth were 
realized. “ This young artist,” mused he, “ is poor, 
but his genius will one day enrich him. If he 
loves Bessy, and is worthy of her, the want of 
wealth shall be no drawback to his success ; I will 
help him on, but not make him too rich, lest the 
world lose the wonders of his art and he the bless- 
ings of industry. The proud, reserved Homer, 
how he hangs over that dark-eyed French girl, as 
if he would exclude her from the gaze of all ! 
There is a web of misery weaving between them. 
I hope she may not love him too well, for he is 
incapable of domestic happiness. Good heavens ! 
what a glance he just cast on Edmund because he 
chanced to be looking at Victorine. I foresee 
trouble on every side, though everything looks so 
bright and fair now. I must take Edmund away 
with me again : he is destined for a lofty sphere ; 
my wealth, my influence, my best affections are his ; 
he shall perpetuate his father’s name not only un- 
tarnished, but brightened in fame. Noble, excel- 
lent boy ! I wish I had a daughter to bestow upon 
him, that he might indeed be my own son.” 

When the family separated for the night, Ed- 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


159 


mund lingered behind, that he might be a few mo- 
ments alone with his brother. He longed for un- 
reserved confidence, for an assurance that mutual 
trust and affection should henceforth exist between 
them. “ Let me wish thee joy, brother/’ said he, 
pressing both hands in his; “you have won the 
first collegiate honours ; you have adopted the pro- 
fession of our honoured father; you love, and 
where you love are loved again. Homer, you 
must be happy now.” 

“No, I never shall be happy ; I deserve not to 
be so. I distrust myself and every human being ; 
I cannot help it. I’ve struggled with my nature 
ever since I was a mere boy, struggled like a giant, 
but it is all in vain. Love with me is a madness, 
and makes my misery, not my happiness. Edmund, 
this shall be an honest moment ; I will tell you all 
that is passing within me, and then you shall hate 
me as you ought. Even this night, in the midst 
of the joy and rapture of welcome, which I declare 
to you I have shared most intensely, the dread that 
Victorine would love you better than myself has 
come over me, making the sweat drops of agony 
moisten my brow.” 

“What can I do to prove that I could not be a 
brother’s rival? Homer, Victorine loves you, 


160 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


and, once loved, you must be loved for ever. I 
could not, if I would, be your rival, but rather than 
inflict upon you even imaginary suffering, I would 
return to-morrow to the shores of Europe and be- 
come an alien from my country and home.” 

“ What ! and make my mother and sisters curse 
me ? No ! I was not born for society, and were I 
to go to some desert island and live like Robinson 
Crusoe, away from all mankind, I should only fulfil 
my destiny. The consciousness that I cast a gloom 
all around me makes me wretched, and yet I can- 
not change the nature which makes me gloomy, 
distrustful, jealous and misanthropic. Bear with 
me, if you can, Edmund, and pity me, for when I 
make others most unhappy, I am myself most mis- 
erable. You were born with a soul of sunshine, 
and you cannot imagine nor dream of that inward 
strife and storm which made me a sullen man when 
a mere boy, and will change my young manhood 
into premature old age.” 

“ Have you ever sought strength of God, Homer ? 
You say I cannot dream of inward strife and 
storm, but I have passions, strong passions, and if 
I did not pray for strength to resist their power, I 
might soon be their slave. I believe in God and 
revere his commandments ; if I break them, I must 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 161 


incur the penalty of their violation. Do you be- 
lieve me when I say this ?” 

“ Believe you, Edmund !” 

“ Then hear me, Homer, while in the name of 
that God I swear, with all the solemnity of an 
oath, that I will never willingly rival you in fame, 
fortune or love. I have no other security under 
heaven to give. Now let us be brothers indeed — 
brothers in heart as well as name. Let us be true 
to the memory of our father and the virtue^ of our 
mother, and the only rivalships between us be in 
filial love and devotion.” 

Edmund stretched out his hand, but Homer 
hastily rejected it, and throwing his arms round 
his brother’s neck, leaned his head on his shoulder 
and wept. What ardent resolutions did he make 
for the future ! What self-renunciations ! What 
promises of amendment! What confessions of 
wrong and supplications for forgiveness ! But 
who can say to the waves of human passion, “ Thus 
far shalt thou go, and no farther, and here shall 
thy proud waves be stayed”? Who shall say, 
when the tempest rises, “ Peace, be still ” ? who but 
the Spirit of God ? 


CHAPTER VIII. 


CONFLICTING CLAIMS. 

DMUND’S return was a signal for festive 



• i meetings in the neighbourhood and town. 
Mrs. Worth’s family was so much beloved that 
every event, whether of joy or sorrow, that oc- 
curred in it, excited the sympathy of all who 
knew it. 

It was that joyous season when everything ani- 
mate and inanimate expands and glows under a 
bright and genial sky; when the gardens and wild- 
w r oods are rich in floral splendour, the water rolls 
blue in the sunshine, and the meadows and plains 
wear that magnificent depth of colour which is 
seen only in northern latitudes. It was a season 
for youthful parties, gay gatherings at home and 
abroad, the morning ride, the evening walk or the 
sail in the pleasure-boat under the moonlight or 
stars. Frank and Laura Wharton came to welcome 
home the friend of their childhood, and to add to 
the gayety and variety of the scene. Frank had 
said, two years before, that Laura was made for 


(162) 



Bessy and Laura in Vivian’s studio. “ ‘Oh, what a beautiful picture!’ ex-, 
claimed Laura, when Bessy carried her into Vivian’s studio .” — Page 163. 


* 




> 



AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 


163 


something better or worse than a fine lady. Tri- 
fling circumstances sometimes speak volumes. 

“ Oh what a beautiful picture !” exclaimed she, 
when Bessy carried her into the studio, where Viv- 
ian still lingered over the portrait he loved, adding 
here and there an almost imperceptible touch ; “ it 
looks like an angel, but not like you, Bessy.” 

“ Not like her !” repeated Vivian. 

“No; very slightly,” replied Laura, making a 
telescope with her hand and taking a long look. 
“ I should know it by the hair, and by its being 
here, but it’s so much flattered, it’s so exquisitely 
beautiful !” 

“ It is impossible that it should be flattered,” 
said Vivian, warmly. “It is impossible even to 
do justice to the original.” 

a< Unless to mortal it were given 

To dip his brush in dyes of heaven/ ” 

added Frank, who entered at this moment. “ I 
agree with you, that it would be impossible to flat- 
ter Bessy.” . 

“Oh yes! I knew you would say so, Frank,” 
cried Laura, with an intelligent smile. “You, 
who have been Bessy’s professed and favored ad- 
mirer so long. But friendship, you know, is im- 
partial ; what is blind, I will not say.” 

10 


164 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 


Vivian coloured high, and cast a piercing glance 
at Frank. 

“ A beautiful picture must always be more beau- 
tiful than the original,” said Bessy, “ there is 
such a softness and smoothness in the colours, 
such perfect repose of features, such indescribable 
sweetness and calmness of expression. Painting 
is the dream of life; all the harshness of reality 
is lost in the brighter, mellower tints of imagi- 
nation.” 

“ You still love dreams, Bessy,” said Frank ; 
u you never utter a long sentence without bringing 
in a dream. Well, I am glad of it, for I am just 
beginning to find out what sweet things dreams 
are.” 

There was something in his tone and manner 
that called a blush to Bessy’s cheek and a frown to 
Vivian’s brow. It was the first time the idea of 
the gay Frank as a lover had entered the bosom 
of Bessy. It was the first time the dread of a ri- 
val seriously disturbed the peace of Vivian. Laura 
had consciously or unconsciously sent a dart that 
continued to rankle when the painter was left alone 
in his studio, and his pencil hung idly in his hands. 
In this attitude Laura found him when, after hav- 
ing seen Frank and Bessy seated at a game of 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 165 

chess, she returned in search of her handkerchief, 
which she was sure she had left on the easel. 

“ Are you, too, dreaming, Mr. Vivian ?” asked 
she, gayly. “ There must be something infectious 
in the atmosphere, or something irresistible in Bes- 
sy’s example. Every one dreams but me.” 

u I have been in a dream, I acknowledge,” said 
Vivian, rising, “ and I ought to thank you for 
awakening me.” 

“ I !” repeated Laura, in a tone of surprise ; “ I 
do not understand you. I spoke sportively, but 
you give me so serious an answer you have excited 
my curiosity.” 

“ Pardon me, Miss Wharton, but you made an 
allusion to your brother which was exquisitely 
painful. Will you explain it ? Is he indeed the 
favoured lover of the original of that picture?” 

, Vivian spoke in a hurried, excited tone. He 
became very pale, and cast down his eyes like a 
man who does not wish to see the full extent of 
his danger. Strange thoughts took possession of 
Laura. She had depreciated Bessy’s beauty be- 
cause she began to envy its power. She had thrown 
out a random remark about Frank because she 
thought Vivian would admire her less if he be- 
lieved her affections were engaged. She was not 


166 


A UNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


prepared to utter a deliberate falsehood, though she 
had not hesitated to give the most erroneous im- 
pressions. 

u Ask Bessy,” said she, evasively ; “ she can ex- 
plain everything better than I can.” Then fearing 
he might follow her advice, and the benefit of this 
misunderstanding be lost to herself, she added, “ I 
did not imagine I was revealing any secret. I 
thought every one knew that they had loved each 
other from childhood.” 

“ Then it was an early attachment,” said Vivian, 
very calmly. 

“ Oh yes, but it was never spoken of seriously 
till just before Edmund’s departure, when it was 
all arranged between them.” (“ I have not said 
what is false,” added she to herself, “ for Frank 
did appropriate her to himself, and she never said 
a word of disapproval. I am sure that is equal to 
an engagement.”) 

“ I am sorry I said anything about it,” con- 
tinued she, “ since it seems to give you so much 
pain. I beg you not to repeat what I have said to 
Bessy, for she would never forgive me, and we 
have always been the most intimate friends — never 
had a quarrel in our lives.” 

“ I thank you,” replied he, coldly ; “ I will not 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


167 


commit you in any respect. I shall not remain 
here long to disturb the happiness of any one.” 

“For Heaven’s sake don’t let what I have said 
drive you away. What will they think of it? 
How strange it will look ! Pray, Mr. Vivian, 
don’t be so rash, so precipitate.” 

“ I am not rash, Miss Wharton. Donit you see 
how very calm I am? Be assured I will never 
make so poor a return for your kindness as to be- 
tray your confidence.” 

He began to gather up his brushes and pencils, 
and Laura felt that her presence was undesirable. 
She stole out of the room and entered the one 
where Bessy sat, impelled by an undefinable dread 
of Vivian’s seeking an immediate explanation. 
The sight of Bessy’s sweet, unconscious face lean- 
ing over the chess-board gave her a pang of re- 
morse. She seemed absorbed in her game. Her 
head rested on her right hand, her left held back 
the ringlets from her brow. 

“ How lovely she looks !” thought Laura ; “ I 
am sure Frank loves her, whether she loves him or 
not, and I have only done her a kindness if I 
have saved her from having her affections entangled 
by a poor painter.” 

She soon saw the figure of Vivian standing 


1G8 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


against one of the pillars of the piazza, and she 
could not bear the sight. She arose to find Emma, 
thinking she could look upon her with an un- 
troubled conscience. 

Bessy, absorbed in the interest of the game, and 
with her face inclined from the window, was not 
aware of the vicinity of Vivian, though her 
thoughts had been wandering toward him more 
frequently than she would be willing to acknow- 
ledge. “I wish I knew what to do with this 
bishop,” said she, thoughtfully ; “ it troubles me.” 

“ I could tell you a very good use to make of 
it,” said Frank, “ if you would let me.” 

“ Nay, Frank, I am not in a jesting mood. Fm. 
in a state of serious perplexity.” 

“ And so am I. This bishop does not trouble 
you half so much as a certain gentleman troubles 
me — this Vivian.” 

“ How foolish !” exclaimed Bessy, hastily. “ If 
you do not attend to your game, I shall checkmate 
you, though you have so much the advantage of 
me.” 

“But seriously, Bessy, I want to know some- 
thing more about this Vivian.” 

“ This Vivian, as you are pleased to call him, 
sir, is ready to answer for himself,” said a haughty 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP- BAG. 


169 


voice, and Vivian suddenly entered the room. 
Bessy started up in terror at this sudden appari- 
tion, and Frank also rose, though he gave back 
the haughty glance of Vivian with one of equal 
scorn. 

“ What do you wish to know of me, .sir ?” re- 
peated he; “I can save this lady the trouble of 
replying.” — „ 

“ This lady !” cried Bessy. “ Oh, Vivian, do 
not speak so angrily. If you knew Frank as well 
as I do, you would not regard it. He always 
speaks in a familiar way. If he were speaking of 
me to you, he would call me this Bessy.” 

“ I said I wanted to know you better, sir,” ex- 
claimed Frank, “and I repeat what I said. Do 
you understand me?” 

“You never will know me better, unless you 
seek me under another roof than this. I will 
never make this house a scene of contention. But 
if we meet again, sir, beware of the language you 
use.” 

“Oh, Frank, what have you done?” cried 
Bessy as Vivian, with hasty step, passed over < the 
threshold, crossed the piazza and was gone. 

“ Done ? nothing ! If I had done what I ought, 
I should have knocked him flat , on the floor. 


170 


AUNT TATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


What business had he to be listening? I am sorry 
I did not chastise him for his insolence. But, Bessy, 
you are weeping. I did not mean to wound your 
feelings. I would not do it for any earthly con- 
sideration. Don’t weep any more, don’t, Bessy ; I 
cannot bear to see you weep.” 

Besgkyfsat, her face covered with her hands, lean- 
ing over thg back of a chair. Every now and 
then' the sound of a suppressed sob echoed dole- 
fully through Frank’s heart ; he longed to comfort 
her, to take her in his arms, to wipe away her 
tears and tell her how beautiful and amiable and 
angelic he thought her. But he did not even dare 
to take a seat near her at this moment, such a sud- 
den transition was wrought in his feelings. He 
felt as if he never more would venture to approach 
Bessy with familiarity, that instead of the free, 
gay rallies, reckless of offence, he was become the 
modest and respectful young man. But along with 
this gentleness and respect for Bessy there was a 
burning desire to humble and exile that Vivian, as 
he could not for his life help calling him. What 
business had he to put on such aristocratic airs 
and presume to monopolize Bessy, to the exclusion 
of her best and earliest friends? — he, a mere stranger, 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


171 


whom, six weeks ago, nobody knew, and for whom, 
six weeks hence, nobody would care? 

“ Won’t you speak to me, Bessy?” said he, at 
length. “I’ll call Vivian back if you wish it, 
though 1*11 be sure to say it’s for your sake, not 
mine.” 4 

“ No, no, no !” answered she, without raising her 
head ; “ say nothing to him, nor to any one else. 
I do not wish to see him. But we have all been 
so happy together : even Homer has been joyous at 
times ; and now it has all passed away like a 
dream.” 

“ We shall be happier than ever,” cried Frank, 
emboldened by the sound of her voice. “ I’m sure 
I have a right to think that you should care more 
for me, your lifelong friend, than the acquaintance 
of a few passing weeks. I’m sure that — I mean 
Vivian — cannot think half so much of you as I do, 
who have known and loved you so long.” 

“ Yes ; we’ve always been like brother and 
sister, Frank.” 

“I don’t mean this brother-and-sister sort of 
love, Bessy ; that passed very well two or three 
years ago, but I’ve found out there’s a great deal 
stronger love than what I feel for Laura.” 

“ Don’t speak of it now, Frank; my head aches 


172 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


and throbs, and I know not what I am saying.” 
She rose and walked to the door, still veiling as 
much as possible her flushed and tearful face. 
Pausing a moment on the threshold, she said, 
“ Promise me, Frank, that there shall be no more 
angry words or looks. If they are given to you, 
return them not ; speak not of it to Edmund, and 
forget it yourself.” 

“I would do anything in the world for your 
sake, Bessy, but I cannot promise, if any one gives 
a blazing glance, to look pleased and smile ; I will 
try, however, to swallow my anger.” 

Frank checked himself, for he found he was 
talking to empty walls; Bessy was gone, and no 
trace left of her but her handkerchief, which lay 
upon the floor by the chair over which she had 
leaned. He took it up ; it was moistened by her 
tears. His heart felt strangely moved by the im- 
pression of Bessy’s tears, and by the knowledge 
tht , however unintentionally, he had been the 
cause. Was it love for Vivian that made her 
weep ? No ; he would not admit that truth ; she 
was far more distant and reserved to Vivian than 
to himself, and^ he recollected that several times 
when, on entering the room, they had both offered 
her a chair, she had taken his in preference to Viv- 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP- BAG. 


173 


ian’s. This and several similar recollections 
warmed and softened Frank’s usually gay heart 
He grew sentimental over this handkerchief moist 
ened by the tears of youth and beauty. He folded 
it carefully, and placing it in his bosom, secretly 
vowed to devote himself henceforth valiantly and 
constantly to this fairest, sweetest, best and loveliest 
of all created beings. Frank certainly was in love ; 
he had placed a maiden’s handkerchief next his 
heart, and his thoughts ran on superlatives. He 
had no opportunity of proving his knight-errantry 
in the course of the day; Vivian did not appear, 
and Bessy remained in her own room on the plea 
of a sick headache — that invariable excuse for a sick 
and aching heart. In the evening, as Estelle sat 
in the window of Aunt Patty’s chamber sewing on 
the immortal counterpane, she saw the figure of 
Vivian walking slowly up and down the garden 
walks, and sometimes he stopped and stood still a 
long time and looked down upon the ground. 
The child wondered at his protracted absence and 
his now lonely walk. A flight of steps ran from 
Aunt Patty’s chamber into the garden, and down 
these steps Estelle flew, and in a moment was at 
Vivian’s side. 

“ Why don’t you come in ?” said she, in a sweet, 


174 


AUNT FATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


earnest tone which it would have been hard to re- 
sist. “ You have been gone so long, and you walk 
about so lonely !” 

“ I’m going away, Estelle, and I don’t like to 
bid good-bye to friends ; you must do it for me.” 

“ Going away!” repeated Estelle, sorrowfully. 
“ Oh, Mr. Vivian, don’t say so ; you haven’t 
painted Aunt Patty’s likeness and mine, and Aunt 
Patty may not live till you come back again.” 

“ I shall never come back again,” cried Vivian, 
in an agitated voice, putting his arms round Estelle 
and kissing her cheek, “but I never shall forget 
you.” 

“ Come up in Aunt Patty’s room and tell her 
the reason,” said the child, pulling Vivian by the 
hand all the time she ran up the steps. “ Come 
and see Aunt Patty, for I know it isn’t right to go 
away so.” 

Vivian found himself in Aunt Patty’s presence 
without any volition of his own, who smiled, nod- 
ded and pointed to a chair, while Estelle still held 
his hand, as if she feared he would vanish from her 
sight. “ See what a beautiful counterpane Estelle 
is making for me !” exclaimed Aunt Patty, whose 
ruling passion became more and more absorbing. 
“ I was afraid the pieces would get lost after a while, 


AUNT FATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


175 


and thought I would have them put all together ; I 
mean to give it to my niece that’s married first — 
Emma or Bessy. I expect it will be Bessy, for 
Emma is weakly, as I used to be, and serious. I 
always thought young Mr. Frank and Bessy would 
make a match ; they used to play together when 
they were children. Here’s a piece of Bessy’s 
frock that she wore the first time you ever came 
here. It’s blue, shaded in a kind of shell work ; 
you know blue becomes Bessy, she’s so fair. Blue 
always becomes a fair complexion ; I never looked 
well in blue, because I was a brunette : red suited 
my complexion best. But I needn’t talk about 
complexion now ; I’m too old. All colours are alike 
to me.” 

Aunt Patty had mounted her hobby, and she 
went on telling the histories of myriad shreds, red, 
pink and brown, but Vivian heard her not. He 
gazed on the sample of shaded blue as if he had 
not the power to withdraw his eyes. 

“May I keep this, Aunt Patty?” said he at 
length ; “ it will remind me of you when I am 
gone.” 

“Yes, keep it,” replied she, “if you like; 
you’ve crumpled and twisted it so it wouldn’t do 
to put in the quilt, and I have another piece like 


176 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


it. But what makes you look so sad and talk 
about being gone ? Has anything happened ? 
Have you had any bad news from home ?” 

Vivian turned away his face and appeared in- 
tently occupied with Estelle’s work. “ Oh, Aunt 
Patty,” cried Estelle, beseechingly, “he’s really 
going away, and I shall not have your picture, after 
all, and what shall we all do without him ? And 
what will sister Bessy say,” continued she, turning 
to Vivian, “ who loves to talk to you so much ?” 

“ Bessy will not care when I am gone,” replied 
he, in a softer tone. “ There are others here whom 
she loves better than me.” 

“Yes, mother and Edmund, but what of that? 
She can love ever so many at a time.” 

Estelle could not comprehend the dark expres- 
sion of Vivian’s face as she uttered this consoling 
remark ; she began to be afraid of him, he spoke 
so strangely and looked so wild and pale. 

“Don’t plague him about my picture, child,” 
said Aunt Patty; “it isn’t worth thinking about. 
I was willing to have it taken to please the chil- 
dren, so that they might remember how poor old 
Patty looked when she’s dead and gone. I in- 
tended to be painted in my thunder-and-iightning 
calico, as Edmund calls it; here is a piece of it. 


AUNT PATTY’S SCBAP-BAO. 


177 


But it’s no matter; it wouldn’t have been fit to 
put up by the side of Bessy’s, any way. Bless her 
heart ! here she comes, looking as pale as a sheet. 
~No ; she’s as fresh as a rose now.” 

Bessy opened the door, unconscious of the guest 
that honoured Aunt Patty’s quiet apartment. She 
would have retreated, but Estelle ran to her and 
told her almost breathlessly that Vivian was going 
away without bidding any one good-bye, and that 
he was never coming back again, and that he didn’t 
believe she cared whether he went or not. 

“Am I so lightly given up, then,” thought 
Bessy, “ that for a single offence from Frank he is 
willing to go without a word of explanation, or 
even one kind good-bye? Is this the end of all 
his ’ fond, flattering words ? Is this the dark wak- 
, ening of my life’s young dream ?” 

That pride which is ever ready to gird and 
sustain the female heart in the hour of trial and 
desertion forbade Bessy from manifesting any 
weakness or regret before one who could trifle so 
wantonly with her feelings. 

“ Beg him to stay, Bessy,” whispered Estelle. 

"If Vivian wishes to go, why should we wish 
him to remain?” asked Bessy, in a cold, constrained 
voice. 


178 


A TINT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


“ When I know that my presence is intrusive,” 
cried Vivian, in the same tone, “ it is natural that 
I should wish to depart.” 

There was a long pause. Aunt Patty took off 
her spectacles, wiped them over and over again, 
put them on and looked at Vivian and Bessy as 
if she thought she had made a mistake in their 
identity. In the simplicity of a lonely life which 
the sunbeams and clouds of love never passed over, 
the roses and thorns of love never strewed, the 
hush and the tempest of love never agitated, she 
was unskilled in that lore which could have enabled 
her to interpret the mysterious change in her young 
friends. 

“Well,” said she, for she had a great horror of 
long pauses, and was always the first to break them, 
“if you must go, may God bless you and take 
you in his holy keeping ! You have a great talent 
entrusted to you. It isn’t everybody that can copy 
the most marvellous works of God as you can. 
It’s like making the deaf hear, the dumb speak 
and bringing the dead to life. It’s like taking the 
power of the Almighty into your own hands and 
making a new creation. Then there is such a com- 
fort in it when friends are dead and gone. If the 
Lord should please to take away Bessy, we w T ould 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


179 


never feel as if we really had lost her, as long as we 
had that sweet, beautiful picture of yours to look 
upon.” 

Aunt Patty, in her eloquence, had touched a 
tender chord. The idea that Bessy might die, and 
all that remained of her be that cold, still, bright 
shadow, the mockery of life, was more than Vivian 
could bear. He turned and looked fixedly on her. 
She sat with her head resting on her hand, her 
eyes bent upon the floor. She looked as if she had 
suddenly frozen in that attitude, so cold, still and 
white she looked. 

“Are you ill, Bessy?” cried he, suddenly, ap- 
proaching her. 

She shook her head, and put out her hand with 
a deprecating motion. There was a quick revul- 
sion in his feelings. 

“ She repels me from her,” thought he, “ even at 
this moment. She has loved him from childhood. 
She is betrothed to him, yet she smiled and listened 
to my vows. So young, so fair, yet so false ! She 
has broken my heart, blasted my fame and with- 
ered my ambition. I never shall touch pencil, 
brush or canvas more. All the glorious visions 
that I hoped to see realized are fled. Nothing is 

left but a wide, dreary blank, an aimless, joy- 
11 


180 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


less, loveless existence, or perchance an early, un- 
distinguished grave.” 

As these thoughts rolled darkly through Vivian’s 
mind, the few short words, “ Farewell, Bessy,” 
were all that escaped from his lips. She Was con- 
scious of a quick, convulsive pressure of the hand, 
the sound of a shutting door, and then it seemed to 
her that there was a strange mingling of light and 
sound in her head, a rushing and roaring and 
flushing that made her giddy and sick and faint. 

“ Don’t look so, Bessy !” cried Estelle. u What’s 
the matter ? Speak to me, Bessy. Oh, Aunt Patty, 
she can’t! Give her your salts. Where’s your 
hartshorn ? Where’s some water ?” 

Estelle ran about the room for salts, hartshorn 
and water, but neither could be found, and she was 
on the wing in another direction when Aunt Patty 
arrested her by suggesting a novel expedient : 

“ Give her a pinch of snuff, Estelle, quick ! It 
will be as good as a dose of hartshorn. It will 
make her sneeze, and that will bring her to herself 
again.” 

Estelle, in her fright, snatched the snuff-box from 
Aunt Patty’s tremulous hand and rushed up to 
Bessy, who still looked so frozen and white that it 
made her shudder. But the confusion in Bessy’s 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


181 


senses had subsided so far that she could hear dis- 
tinct sounds, and Aunt Patty’s proposal excited so 
much horror and disgust that she drew back her 
head in time to avoid the odious contact. Aunt 
Patty took the real old-fashioned yellow Scotch 
snuff, and though it did not mar perceptibly the 
beauty of her own face, it would have left a very 
disfiguring cloud round Bessy’s fair nose. 

“ There, there ! the very smell has revived her,” 
cried Aunt Patty; “there’s nothing like snuff, 
after all. Go quietly to bed, darling, and don’t 
get to thinking and dreaming too hard. You’ve 
walked about too much in the moonshine lately, 
and I’ve always heard it was bad for the brains. 
They say, though, that angels fly about in the 
moonlight, and I’ve sometimes thought that I’ve 
seen them sitting under the trees and on the banks 
of the water where it shines like silver. Well, if 
they do come down from the skies, I know they 
will watch by your pillow; so good-night again, 
darling, and, as old Doctor Watts says, ‘Holy 
angels guard thy bed.’ ” 

The poetical chords in Bessy’s soul vibrated in 
gentle response to Aunt Patty’s kind good-night. 
She bent her head to receive her parting kiss, and 
retired with Estelle, who watched her with anxious 


182 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG . 


tenderness, fearing the return of that pale, death- 
like look. 

The sudden departure of Vivian caused quite a 
sensation when it was made known at the break- 
fast-table. Laura, who well knew the cause, was 
the most astonished of all. She could not imagine, 
she could not conceive, the motive of his abscond- 
ing so. Perhaps he had been detected in some dis- 
graceful act, and was fleeing from the penalty of 
the violated law. At any rate, it was very rude 
and ungrateful in him to leave the family so ab- 
ruptly. 

Edmund, though he thought his conduct very 
strange and unaccountable, warmly defended him 
from Laura’s sweeping changes. He was willing 
to stake his life on the purity of his moral cha- 
racter. Such genius, enthusiasm and sensibility 
never could be the accompaniments of meanness 
and vice. Edmund reasoned with the warmth of 
a young and generous spirit which, incapable of 
anything low and degrading, can hardly believe in 
the existence of vice. 

Mr. Selwyn smiled with more worldly wisdom, 
though he loved the confidence that was born of 
rectitude and innocence. He was mortified at Viv- 
ian’s departure, for if it should really result from 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


183 


guilt, it would prove an error in his judgment, 
which he seldom committed. 

Mrs. Worth and Emma said but little, but 
they thought of Bessy, and had some sad fore- 
bodings. 

Frank thought it a fit of well-founded jealousy, 
but he would not betray his thoughts. 

Estelle sat in silence, looking u unutterable 
things,” for she had promised Bessy not to men- 
tion his strange visit to Aunt Patty’s room. 

What Bessy thought and felt was confessed to 
her mother the first time they were alone. All 
the love, hope, joy, fear and anguish of that pure, 
imaginative, loving, too susceptible heart was 
poured into the hearfrof one who gave back the 
tenderest sympathy blended with the most judi- 
cious counsels — one in whom the experience of 
riper years was softened by the still living and 
glowing memories of youth. 

“ Oh, mother,” cried Bessy, at the close of this 
long, affectionate interview, “ how grateful I am for 
your kindness, gentleness and sympathy ! You do 
not blame me for my weakness and folly. I will 
struggle against it for your sake. And yet I was 
so happy in his companionship ! After he came it 
seemed as if new faculties and sensibilities dawned 


184 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


in my soul, as stars gleam out thick and bright on 
the firmament when the wand of night is lifted. 
Yet he was not like night. He was too bright, too 
glorious, for night. A thousand times, dear mother, 
Fve felt as if I had existed before, and feelings 
and events seemed but the reminiscences of another 
shadowy world. Perhaps you do not understand 
me, but I’m sure my spirit lived before it ani- 
mated this dust of mine. Yes, lived and glowed 
and loved. And when Vivian came, my heart 
sprang to meet him as one known, loved and re- 
membered — the being of a fairer clime than this. 
Oh what a change there was ! The skies looked 
bluer, the sun brighter, the birds sang a more 
melodious song; even your smile, my mother, 
seemed softer and sweeter than ever. I have lived, 
for a little time, the life of an angel, and now it is 
all over, and we will never speak of it again. And 
I will try to smile and let no one see that it is an 
effort to do so. I will henceforth live nearer to 
God.” 

Bessy looked up with such a heavenly expres- 
sion that her mother thought she was too much 
assimilated to angels for an earthly union. Per- 
haps, like the daughter of Jephthah, she was about to 
be sacrificed on God’s altar in the dew of her youth 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


185 


and the light of her beauty — a sweet, fragrant offer- 
ing, holy and acceptable in his sight. 

“ God bless thee, my child, and give thee strength 
to keep thy holy resolution !” said Mrs. Worth, ten*, 
derly embracing her, while her eyes were moistened 
With tears. “ Take comfort from my experience. 
I have wept over the loss of one whom I loved 
with a love to which that you feel for Vivian must 
be light. Yes, Bessy, for it grew stronger and 
deeper and holier by time. Yours is but the flower 
that blooms in the sunshine, which a summer gale 
may destroy ; mine the tree rooted into the soil 
that must be rent asunder ere it withers and falls. 
You remember when you were made fatherless, 
you remember well the first dark days of my 
widowhood, but you never knew, none but my 
Maker knew, the desolation, the agony of my soul, 
till I learned submission to his will, and could 
say that it was good that I had been afflicted. 
You are very young, my Bessy, and if this first 
blossom of love is doomed to an untimely blight, 
others will bloom to sweeten and gladden your 
youth. Nor has the grave interposed its cold, deep 
barrier between you and the object of your affec- 
tions. Life and hope, and perhaps joy and love, 
remain for you. In the mean time, let us live 


186 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 


nearer to each other and to God, and if we cannot 
find happiness, we shall be blessed with content.” 

From this time a holier, closer, tenderer union 
than had ever before united them existed between 
Mrs. Worth and her beautiful child. They had 
looked into each other’s heart, as the moon looks 
into the deep, silent waters, reflecting light, beauty 
and peace. 


CHAPTER IX. 


VICTORINE AND HOMER. 

I X the immediate neighbourhood of Mrs. Worth 
there dwelt two aged women who were called. 
par excellence, the good old ladies. They sustained 
the relation of mother and daughter to each other, 
the latter having seen her threescore, the former 
her fourscore years and ten. They belonged to the 
nominal poor of the town, but when their misfor- 
tune and infirmities first threw them on the public 
for support, they were so much distressed at the 
idea of going to the almshouse that a number of ^ 
individuals pledged themselves to furnish them the 
means of subsistence in a small but comfortable— 
cabin which was gratuitously offered them. Their 
wants were but few, nor would they want their 
little long; they w r ere called, through universal 
courtesy, old Lady Graves and old Lady Paine. 
Strangers would have thought there were no other 
old ladies in town, for they were always called the 
old ladies — a distinction they obtained as much by 

their piety and tenderness as by their superior age. 

(187) 


188 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


The children of Mrs. Worth had from earliest 
childhood considered it one of their greatest pleas- 
ures to visit this little cabin and be the almoners 
of their mother’s bounty. They had many sweet- 
heart gifts of their own, too, to offer, such as flow- 
ers and fruit, and many a delicacy which they 
denied themselves that they might earn the bless- 
ings of the aged. The old ladies still called them 
their little benefactresses, and Edmund was their 
dear, good, darling boy, though his head now 
towered over theirs. He had remembered them 
even in transatlantic shores, and brought them 
spectacles which they thought had rejuvenated 
their eyes, so light giving and faith inspiring is 
benevolence. The path which led to their dwell- 
ing was a straight, narrow lane margined on each 
side with green, and it was a smooth, beaten track. 
The grass was never suffered to grow in the centre, 
nor to be wantonly trampled down at the sides. 
In winter, when the snow came drifting down, 
covering the ground with one broad, deep, white 
crust, some kind hand always cut a nice trench up 
to the old ladies’ door. When the farmers turned 
out in a body to carry wood to their minister and 
the sleds moved in long procession down the street, 
leaving a shining path behind them, a load was 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP- BAG. 


189 


always left quietly in the old ladies’ yard, and it 
was sure to be nicely cut and piled for their handy 
use. Truly the path of poverty and age was 
smoothed before these time-worn pilgrims as they 
travelled hand in hand toward the grave, looking 
backward,. with gratitude and forward with faith 
to the green fields of the promised land. These 
humble women played no conspicuous part in the 
drama of life, and it may perhaps be asked, Why 
are they introduced in this collection of family 
pictures? Because they linked the young whose 
history we are writing with the past generations ; 
because that low cabin was the scene of many of 
their purest joys; and more than all, because in 
drawing pictures we love contrasts of light and 
shade, and nothing can be more beautiful than to 
see the glow and brightness of youth side by side 
with the pallor and dimness of age. 

Frank called these old ladies the belles of the 
town, and laughed at Edmund for his devotion to 
them, yet he had often been detected in stealthily 
sending large packets from the stores which came 
to them like fairy gifts without a name. Laura 
thought it very ridiculous to make such a fuss 
about the old grannies, and wondered how the 
graceful Edmund and the beautiful Bessy could 


190 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 


endure such crones. One evening Edmund en- 
tered the cottage to avoid a shower that fell just as 
he was passing. The door was open, and he stood 
a moment on the threshold unobserved to contem- 
plate a picture exceedingly beautiful in his eyes. 
The elder of the aged pair sat in an arm-chair, her 
knitting in her hand, one needle shining under 
the border of her crimped cap above her silver 
hair, her ball pinned to her frock, a heart-shaped 
knitting-sheath fastened to her side. The mildness 
and innocence of second childhood softened a coun- 
tenance no longer agitated by the storms of human 
passion. The waters were all still ; not even a rip- 
ple disturbed the reflection of life’s setting sun that 
dipped his mellowed beams in the waves. On her 
left the venerable daughter sat bending over a lit- 
tle wheel, her inseparable companion, whose low, 
monotonous humming constituted the music of her 
existence, for she was deaf, and the usual tone of 
the human voice did not penetrate her ear. She 
could hear, however faintly, the buzzing of her own 
little wheel, and she said it sounded like a distant 
waterfall, and it made her feel so peaceful she 
loved to hear it. Now she leaned forward and wet 
her fingers in the gourd-shell that hung by the dis- 
taff ; then she twisted the shining flax into almost 



Victorine reading to Lady Graves and Lady Paine. “ Between them was 
seated Victorine, who looked like a bright flower springing up amid Alpine 
snows. ’ ’ — Page 191. 




AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


191 


invisible thread, her foot patting the treadle-board, 
the pedal to this harp of industry. Between these 
two was seated a youthful maiden who looked 
like a bright flower springing up amid Alpine 
snows, with her pure white robes, her dark, un- 
bound hair, her face partially inclined over the 
book of God which lay upon her knees, from which 
she was reading to the two aged Christians. Vic- 
torine had never appeared so interesting to the eyes 
of Edmund. He had scarcely looked upon her 
lately, so fearful was he of exciting the jealous 
madness of his brother. ‘But now, withdrawn from 
the glance of that dark eye which watched his 
every motion, unseen too by herself, he dared to 
gaze upon her and think that time had wrought 
marvellous changes since she was the wild gypsy 
girl of the French menagerie. There was some- 
thing soft and pensive in the expression of her 
usually too bright and flashing eye, and the holy 
act in which she was engaged threw an air of sanc- 
tity and spirituality around her virgin form. She 
was reading the Psalms of David, and their mel- 
ody fell sweetly on his ear : 

“ Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all 
generations. 

“ Before the mountains were brought forth, or 


192 


AUNT FATTY; S SCRAP-BAG. 


ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, 
even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art 
God.” 

While she read this sublime prayer of Moses 
which is included in the hosannas of the sweet 
singer of Israel, the spinner leaned over the distaff, 
for the clear voice of Victorine glided through the 
bars that obstructed her hearing like the song of 
a bird through its grated cage, and the octogena- 
rian dropped her knitting in her lap and raised 
her glimmering eyes to heaven, murmuring in re- 
sponse : “ Few and evil have the days of the years 
of my pilgrimage been.” Edmund would not 
have interrupted this beautiful scene had all the 
waters of the Deluge been pouring upon him, but 
when Victorine arose and laid the Bible upon the 
little table, beside the emblematic hour-glass, he 
crossed the threshold and was welcomed, as he 
always was, with grateful smiles and trembling 
pressures of the hand. “ Bless the dear boy !” ex- 
claimed old Lady Graves; “ he has his father’s 
steps and his mother’s smile. I should know when 
he entered were I blind. Bless me, how the young 
plants shoot up ! I remember when your mother 
came to town, a lovely, blooming bride, as young 
as Victorine, and your father had the princely air 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


193 


which you have now, and now he’s mouldering 
away in the grave, and you, who were not then, 
stand tall and man-like before me, as if you had 
risen up out of his ashes. Alackaday ! what 
changes there are in the world ! And I, poor old 
creature ! who felt as old then as I do now, may 
live to see the day when your children may be 
dandled on my knees, nor fear the face of a hun- 
dred years.” 

“ I shall never marry anybody, dear grand- 
mother,” answered Edmund, smiling. “ I think it 
likely I shall live an old bachelor and take care 
of mother till she gets to be as aged as you are 
now.” 

“ You !” said the old lady, shaking her head. 
u No, no ; the Lord never created you for an old 
bachelor. I was just thinking, when you came in, 
what a beautiful match you and Victorine would 
make, both so good and kind and handsome, and 
living so close together, too; it’s natural to be 
thinking about it.” 

“ Somebody else is thinking about it,” said Ed- 
mund, trying to speak- with indifference. “ Homer 
would not like to hear you unite any name but his 
with Victorine’s. Pie had the advantage of me 
whilst I was the other side of the ocean.” 


194 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP- BAG. 


“ He !” repeated the old lady, in a sorrowful 
tone ; “ he’s too dark and gloomy to make her or 
anybody else happy. When he was a little boy 
no higher than my knee, he used to sit like a 
raven in a corner, and refuse to play, because, he 
said, nobody cared anything about him, and he 
wouldn’t go where he wasn’t wanted. I love him 
because he’s the son of your mother, and I love 
everything that belongs to her, even the blades of 
grass that grow round the stepping-stones of her 
door, but I don’t want him to marry that young 
thing who’s got such a tender heart; it would 
break if it were handled roughly. Don’t be angry 
with an old woman for speaking her mind so plain ; 
the Lord fixes all these things in his own al mighti- 
ness, without taking counsel from any one, and I 
don’t believe he ever matched these two.” 

Edmund felt that his old friend was leading him 
into dangerous ground, and he saw by Yictorine’s 
crimsoned cheek and embarrassed air that she was 
anxious to evade the subject. She walked to the 
window, and casting an uneasy look abroad, de- 
clared the rain was subsiding and she feared they 
would be wondering at her long absence. Edmund 
rose to accompany her ; he had no umbrella, but 
he thought it would be safer to walk a short dis- 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


195 


tance in the rain than to remain to hear a conversa- 
tion of which Homer was the theme. They went 
out together, and had walked a few steps when 
Edmund, suddenly recollecting himself, exclaimed, 
“ Return, Victorine, and I will go and bring you 
an umbrella and shawl. Strange I should have 
been so careless of your comfort !” 

“ No,” answered she, hastily ; u I love to walk 
in the rain ; nothing exhilarates my spirits so much, 
and to walk with you, Edmund, reminds me of 
1 auld lang syne.’ You are almost like a stranger 
to me now.” 

Victorine sighed, and Edmund knew that his 
reserve and coldness, contrasted with his former 
brotherly familiarity, must appear very strange and 
unkind to her. He could not tell her it was to 
avoid exciting his brother’s jealousy that he im- 
posed such a restraint on himself. He preferred 
bearing the reproach of caprice and inconsistency, 
which, he doubted not, she laid upon him, than ex- 
pose Homer to blame. 

“ I am sorry to have you get so wet,” said he, 
taking off his hat and holding it against the wind, 
so as to keep the rain, which now fell faster and 
faster, from beating in her face. Victorine pro- 
tested against this gallantry, but Edmund reminded 
12 


196 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP- BAG. 


her of the days of his boyhood, when he was pro- 
verbial for seeking the baptism of a summer shower. 
There was something exhilarating, as Victorine 
said, in hurrying through the fast-dropping rain, 
and the reminiscences of childhood thus awakened 
drew them closer together, and made Edmund for- 
get for a moment that he was no longer a boy 
free as the wind, and with a heart as transparent as 
the raindrops. Their gay laughs mingled together ; 
Victorine’s long hair blew against his cheeks and 
fluttered among his dark-brown locks. They were 
children again, in this merry plight, and could not 
help feeling sorry when they reached the threshold, 
where they stopped, panting for breath, with glow- 
ing cheeks and wet, disordered hair. 

“ Wasn’t that a glorious run?” cried Victorine; 
“ I wouldn’t have missed it for Gilpin’s thousand 
pounds.” 

Victorine turned her sparkling eyes to Edmund 
as she spoke, but a coming figure “ cast its shadow 
before ” and prevented his reply. Homer had seen 
their approach from the window, and the lion pas- 
sion lurking in the bottom of his heart leaped from 
its covert. Edmund saw by the expression of his 
countenance all that was passing within, and the 
merry laugh died on his lips. He immediately ex- 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


197 


plained their unexpected meeting and the circum- 
stances of their return, inwardly reproaching him- 
self for experiencing so much gratification from an 
accident which caused his brother anguish. But 
the cloud still lowered on Homer’s brow. The 
shower passed over, and 

“ Far up the blue sky a fair rainbow unrolled 
Its soft-tinted pinions of purple and gold.” 

Brighter and brighter still glowed its seven-fold 
beams, till another paler bow appeared within, and 
still another beauteous apparition, till the triple 
arch spanned the heavens, reflected its dyes on the 
green, glittering earth and panting leaves and 
mirrored itself in the glassy depths of the streams. 
The family all gathered in the piazza to gaze on 
the messenger of peace, standing, like the apoca- 
lyptic angel, with one foot on land and one foot on 
sea, its garments dipped in the sun, and they 
gazed till the glory gradually departed and noth- 
ing was left but a soft gray expanse, soon covered 
with the deeper gray of twilight. Bessy, at Mr. 
Selwyn’s request, repeated Campbell’s magnificent 
address to the rainbow, which he said was the most 
unrivalled of poems, but Emma ventured to assert, 
much as she admired the stanzas, the simple and 


198 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 


sublime annunciation in Scripture of the u bow of 
God set as a covenant on the retreating clouds of 
the Deluge” surpassed the descriptions of human 
genius. 

Yes; the shower passed away, the glorious rain- 
bow faded away, the deep gray of twilight blackened 
into night, yet still the cloud lowered on Homer’s 
brow. The lamps were lighted, the evening circle 
gathered together, still, Homer, like a broken link 
in the family chain, remained apart, and the bright- 
ness of that chain was impaired. Mr. Selwyn and 
Emma sat down to a game of chess, his favourite 
recreation, and one which suited well her serious and 
abstracted turn of mind. Since he had discovered 
her talent, he had so frequently called it into requi- 
sition that now, whenever he began to arrange the 
men on the board, she considered it a mute chal- 
lenge, and immediately relinquished whatever oc- 
cupation she might be engaged in, grateful that 
she eould contribute in any degree to the amuse- 
ment of so noble and generous a being. Like all 
great men, he had his weaknesses, and one was, he 
did not like to be defeated. Emma played well 
enough to interest him without the fear of being 
often beaten, and on that account he preferred her 
to morp experienced champions. Emma had tact 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


199 


enough to perceive this, and she never tried to play 
too well. Absorbed in this quiet, intellectual game, 
the inequalities of Homers manner, which often 
threw a shade over the evening circle, were seldom 
perceived by them. Victorine played some of her 
sweetest songs in concert with Edmund’s flute, but 
the evil spirit departed not. She continued to 
play, however, after Edmund had laid down his 
flute, and caught up in a wild, brilliant manner 
snatches of melody, changing as the notes of a 
mocking-bird, as capricious and as sweet. 

“ Oh, Victorine,” exclaimed Laura, throwing 
down a book with which she had been playing, 
rather than reading, “have mercy on our ears. 
You’ve banished Bessy already. She seems to 
have lost her love for music lately. Why, what 
has inspired you so to-night? That fine run in 
the rain with Edmund ? How happened you to 
meet at those evening belles’, as Frank calls them ? 
I really think it must have been a concerted plan. 
You and Edmund both look guilty; see how she 
blushes .! Goodness ! what’s the matter with Ho- 
mer? What sent him out so suddenly? Frank, 
didn’t you observe how strange Homer looked ?” 

“How can I hear or observe anything,” cried 
Frank, “when you overpower everything with 


200 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


your rattling tongue ? Victorine, don’t mind her 
nonsense, but play my favourite song before you 
rise. I’ve been waiting patiently for it the whole 
evening.” 

Frank did observe, with pain and displeasure, 
the effect of his sister’s levity, and sought to divert 
the attention of Victorine. 

“I cannot play any more to-night, Frank,” 
cried she, “ though you are very kind to ask it of 
me.” 

She rose with a heightened colour and left the 
room, giving Laura a look, as she passed, of un- 
utterable reproach. 

" Mercy ! what a dull place this is getting to be !” 
cried Laura, trying to look innocent. “ One cannot 
say a word in jest but everybody takes it up as 
seriously as if they were going to fight a duel. 
Look at Emma, glued down to that chessboard, 
her head leaning on one hand, the other stretched 
out over the queen, like a Roman shield in the day 
of battle. I don’t believe she would hear if seven 
thunders were pealing in her ears.” Emma looked 
up with a sweet smile that belied her words. Laura 
lowered her voice, and continued : “ Do you know, 
Frank, that I think Emma is really half in love 
with old Mr. Selwyn?” Emma did not look up 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


201 


again, but her pale cheek turned red, and the next 
move she lost her queen. 

Mr. Selwyn, of whom it might in truth be said 
that while he was playing chess he would not hear 
if seven thunders uttered their voice, kept calling 
out check, check, till she had no place to turn, and 
gladly surrendering, she retreated from the board, 
giving Laura a mild but very rebuking glance as 
she too passed out of the room. 

“Why, where is everybody going ?” exclaimed 
Laura; “there must be something extraordinary 
to see.” She went out' herself, with the waltzing 
step, leaving Frank seriously angry at her un- 
daunted levity. 

In the mean time, Victorine wandered in the 
piazza, whither Homer had wandered before, and 
they met, face to face, beneath the glimmering stars 
that flashed here and ther~ in the “ darkening firm- 
ament of June.” 

“ Victorine,” said he, suddenly, “ walk with me 
in the garden ; I cannot speak to you here.” 

“It is damp after the shower,” answered she, 
with a slight shudder. 

“You did not fear the dampness,” replied he, in 
a bitter tone, “when you were clinging to Ed- 
mund’s arm.” 


\ 


202 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


“ Come !” cried she ; “ I do not fear it now ;” and 
yielding to his motion as he drew her hand round 
his arm, she followed him through the garden 
walks into an arbour whose shade, soft and re- 
freshing in a dry, sultry evening, now drooped 
heavily over them, surcharged with the rain and 
the dew. 

“Your hand is very cold, Victorine; I do not 
wish to chill you.” 

“ It is not half so cold as my heart. There is 
nothing so chilling, so freezing, as suspicion.” 

“I know that but too well. I feel now as if a 
girdle of ice were round my heart. But certainty 
is not suspicion. Victorine, I know that you love 
Edmund.” 

“Homer, I came here to be catechised, exam- 
ined, questioned and cross-questioned. I expected 
such an inquisition, and I can bear it. But I did 
not come here to be insulted, and I will not bear 
it.” The quick-flowing blood of the French rushed 
in a burning current to the face of Victorine, though 
darkness rested upon it as a veil, and she turned 
proudly from him. 

“ Stay !” cried he, forcibly detaining her as she 
attempted to leave the grotto ; “ it is not an insult 
to assert a fact visible as the sun at noonday. 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


203 


When did you ever manifest in my company the 
joy, the rapture, that beamed in your eyes this day 
under circumstances that would have drowned a 
common emotion? When did you ever give me 
such a look as you turned on Edmund, when the 
sight of me seemed to change you into stone? 
Why go away in stealth to a spot which you knew 
Edmund daily visits, if it were not in the hope, the 
certainty, of meeting him unconstrained by my 
presence ? Victorine, you are silent ; you cannot 
answer me.” 

“ Cannot answer you !” repeated she, indignant- 
ly ; “ what use in reasoning with a madman ? And 
yet I will reply in justice to myself, not you. How 
can my eyes beam with rapture on one whose brow 
is ever clouded by suspicion or darkened by jeal- 
ous passion ? As well might the volcano wonder 
that the flowers of the valley withered under its 
breath,, as well might the ice marvel that it chills 
the breast on which it falls, as you, distrustful, jeal- 
ous and unjust as you are, as you wonder that I 
cannot look on you with joy. You accuse me of 
visiting by stealth a place familiar to us all as our 
own family hearth — where we all go and come 
without ceremony or care, and where I was as 
likely to meet you as Edmund. Yes, it was likely 


204 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


I went by stealth, as if ashamed of my purpose, 
under the light of the sun, and it was likely, too, 
that I meditated falsehood and guilt by the side of 
those aged ones almost enveloped with the shadows 
of the grave, with the word of God upon my knee 
and its sacred texts upon my lips ! Oh, shame on 
you, Homer ! — shame on your unmanly accusations ! 
I care not for them, I scorn them all, but it 
grieves me, it pains me, to see you sunk in my 
estimation, unworthy of my respect, an object of 
pity and condemnation.” 

" All this from you, Victorine ?” cried he, in a 
subdued voice. 

“ Yes,” answered she, excited beyond the power 
of repressing her emotions — “ all this, and more. 
You must read my character better. You looked 
upon me first as a gay, sportive girl, with more 
vivacity than feeling, whose sallies of mirth amused 
even you. You believed me next a fond, confiding 
maiden, with more tenderness than pride, whose 
love, once won, must be an inalienable possession. 
You do not know me yet. I grant that I have 
gayety and tenderness and trust, but I have an 
independent spirit, too, that will not brook the vas- 
salage of your passions ; an elastic one that rebounds' 
when it is trampled upon ; a strong one that would 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 


205 


rend asunder the bonds that confine it, were they 
bars of iron and triple steel.” 

Homer listened in amazement to this burst of 
indignant and outraged feeling from the usually 
gay and tender Victorine. The soft young girl 
was converted into the accusing judge ready to 
pronounce upon him the stern sentence of the law. 
She seemed lost to him for ever. His own folly 
and madness had sealed his doom. Like the base 
Judean, he had thrown from him a gem richer 
than all his tribe, and he must mourn through life 
the consequences of his guilty rashness. A mist 
was swept from his vision. He saw passion and 
truth standing side by side in all their deformity 
and purity, and he wondered that he could ever 
have yielded to the dominion of the former. He 
remembered the vow of his generous brother, and 
he knew that the lips of Edmund had never been 
polluted by a falsehood. He loathed himself, he 
repented in dust and ashes. As these thoughts re- 
volved in his mind, he sat with his face buried in 
his hands, bowed down with the weight of self- 
humiliation. 

Victorine could not see his countenance, but she 
could see his bowed attitude and hear the deep 
sighs that mingled with the soft moaning of the 


206 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


night breeze. Indignation instantaneously melted 
into sorrow. She sat down beside him and put 
her hand on his hot brow. “Oh what a pity,” 
she exclaimed, “ that you will not let us love you 
as we might — that you will not be happy as you 
ought! We might live in so much love and har- 
mony, such a charming family of brothers and 
sisters ; such a sweet, angelic mother ; so many 
blessings and so many friends ; and then, to 
crown the whole, such a gracious God to watch 
over and love us ! Look up, Homer ; let us try to 
be happy once more. Let us forget and forgive 
what we have both said. I have been too much 
excited, and carried my resentment too far.” 

“ Forgive you !” cried he, clasping his arms 
around her with a wildness and impetuosity that 
made her tremble ; “ I do not merit this gentleness. 
I deserve nothing but indignation and wrath. I 
know I am unworthy of your love, and that I have 
come like a dark shadow over your loveliness and 
youth. And yet, Victorine, if you only knew how 
I love you ; if you could look into my heart and 
see the intensity, the idolatry, of my passion ; if 
you could know, while I am torturing you, what 
agony I am enduring myself, — you would pity me 
as the veriest wretch that ever lived. Would to 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


207 


heaven that I had shut out the first thought of love ; 
that I had never dared to dream of the possibility 
of your loving me ; that I had not encroached on 
your gentle and pitying nature, and forced you into 
communion with a spirit like mine ! I know that 
I can never make you happy, that I must ever be 
subject to these paroxysms of madness, and that I 
ought at this moment to resign you for ever, and 
yet the rending asunder of body and soul must be 
less painful than the idea of such a separation.” 

Victorine listened, tearful and agitated, to these 
impassioned words, and felt herself borne up on 
the strong current of his emotions above all selfish 
considerations. She cared not whether she was 
happy herself or not. She wished Homer had 
never loved her so unwisely, so passionately, so 
je- ously, but since he did so love her, she would 
endeavour to bear with patience the infirmities of 
his nature. She would repress the delight, pure 
and innocent as it was, that she felt in Edmund’s 
society, rather than inflict upon him one voluntary 
pang. She would close every avenue to jealousy 
with golden bars that could not corrode. Every 
look, word and motion should be schooled to the 
discipline he required. In this self-sacrificing, 
martyr-like mood, she was willing to be stretched 


208 AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 

on the bed of Procrustes, to be tortured into any 
shape or form, provided she could secure the 
happiness of Homer. 

Yictorine forgot that she was the child of im- 
pulse, and that she could no more guard herself 
from its influence than the young flower can resist 
the gale that bows its pliant stem. 


CHAPTER X. 


A MOUNTAIN PIC-NIC. 

H AVE you ever seen a clearing-up shower ? — 
how, after a long, dreary storm, when the 
clouds have been gathering and apparently dis- 
persing, then gathering again, coming down in a 
heavy, drizzling rain, a darker cloud condenses, the 
lightning burns on its blackness, the thunder bursts 
from its bosom and the drops fall thick and plash- 
ing till they mingle in one broad sheet of water, 
threatening to deluge the earth? Suddenly the 
clouds roll back, the blue sky trembles through the 
chasm, then the sun shines forth in its glory ; the 
birds fly warbling from their coverts, the trees 
shake the raindrops from their green leaves, the 
flowers lift up their fair heads, looking timidly to- 
ward heaven, and all nature rejoices as in the morn- 
ing of its nativity. Then follow long genial days 
of sunshine — sunshine without a shade,' save here 
and there a solitary white cloud floating gently 
along till it melts in the soft tranquillity of blue. 

There are clearing-up showers in the moral world, 

f209) 


210 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


also, when long lowering doubts and sullen sus- 
picions gather into the thunder-cloud of passion, 
which discharges its electric fires, and leaves the 
heart purified and invigorated. 

Yictorine now rejoiced in this moral sunshine, 
and smiled, sang and sported once more. Bask 
a while in this sunshine, thou child of sunny France, 
and let thy young spirit bathe joyously in its beams, 
for the dark hour may yet come, and the sunshine 
depart, and the air blow chill on thy soul. 

Do you remember the arbor where Homer and 
Yictorine sat the night of the clearing-up shower ? 
"Will you walk there again, in the calm, glowing 
twilight, and take a seat by the two who sit there 
side by side in the shadow of those clustering vines ? 
Do not imagine that it is Homer and Yictorine 
lingering still on the trysting spot of their recon- 
ciliation. It is Frank and Bessy, and by the soft 
and pensive hour, the retired, romantic place, it 
may be supposed they have met to converse on 
some sentimental theme, and that Yivian has been 
thus soon supplanted, so fickle is the heart of wo- 
man deemed. Will you listen, as their voices sound 
low in the hush of that still hour, and decide upon 
the truth and constancy of Bessy ? They have been 
sitting there all the time yon bird has been singing 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


211 


its vesper hymn to the God of the twilight, and 
you must discover the secret of their past conversa- 
tion by the words they are now uttering. 

“No, Frank,” said Bessy, making a kind of 
fairy lattice-work of the tendrils of the vine ; “ I 
know that my feelings will never change. I grant 
that all you say is true, that his absence is inexpli- 
cable, perhaps unjustifiable, and that I may be 
doomed to waste the season of youth and hope in 
the sadness of memory. I have always loved you 
as a friend, and had no being come who awakened 
all the capabilities my heart has of loving, I might 
have been satisfied with this gentle feeling, not 
knowing that a stronger and deeper existed within 
me. But now it is all in vain. Don’t speak of it 
again, Frank. It makes me very unhappy. It 
fills me with a sense of injustice and wrong, and 
yet, if I know my own heart, I have never de- 
ceived you. In my wish to be ingenuous, I fear I 
have sacrificed delicacy to truth and made an 
avowal which ought to cover me with blushes.” 

The sweet roses of modesty did bloom most beau- 
tifully for a few moments on Bessy’s cheek. The 
hue of the rose had lately been wanting there. 

“Fool that I was,” exclaimed Frank, “not to 
think of this before Vivian came ! I never cared 
13 


512 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


about any one but you, but. because I was a foolish, 
liairbrained youth that liked to make people laugh 
you thought I could not think and feel deeply. I 
did not know how deeply and strongly I could feel 
myself till I met that Vivian here, and found him 
monopolizing you as all his own. If I had only 
been first to speak, for I was first to love ! He 
paints divinely, it is true, but who couldn’t paint 
you, Bessy? I could make an angel of you my- 
self with one stroke of, the pencil. He writes 
^charming poetry; so can I. I made more than 
fifty verses on you last night. I never wrote any 
in my life till you inspired me. Bessy, you could 
make a painter, a poet or an orator of me — per- 
haps a great and good man. If you cast me off, I 
shall be nothing but a discontented, moping bache- 
lor who will not live out half his days.” 

“ Now, dear Frank, pray listen to me one mo- 
ment, even as to a sister, and do not be angry or 
think I mock your constancy. But I know your 
nature, and know that disappointment cannot long 
rest heavily on you. You will throw off the 
weight and feel lighter and happier from contrast, 
and there is one, Frank, whom you have known as 
long as you have me ten thousand times better 
than I am, who might indeed make you a great 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 213 

and good nlan, and whose affections might possibly 
be won. By and by all you now feel for me will 
pass away like a dream of the morning: every- 
thing earthly will pass away ; but she, if you would 
love her, Frank, she would lead you gently up to 
heaven, where there are no dreams to delude, but 
all is glorious reality.” 

Bessy sighed and passed her hand over her brow, 
wishing she had the same calm, angelic tempera- 
ment as her sister Emma. Frank crushed the 
grass under his feet, pulled off the twigs of the 
bower and strewed them on the ground, then rose 
and walked « backward and forward as far as the 
length of the arbour would permit, but finding 
himself compelled to turn too often, he sat impa- 
tiently down. 

“ Don’t talk to me of another,” said he. “I 
know whom you mean ; she’s a dear, good girl, but 
no more to be compared to you than a glow-worm 
to a star. I am not thinking of myself now. I 
don’t care for myself. If you were happy, I could 
willingly hang myself to-morrow. But when I 
hear you sigh and look up so sadly, I feel as if a 
two-edged sword were passing through my body. 
I’ll tell you one thing, Bessy, if it’s the last breath 
I have to utter : if that Vivian does prove to be a 


214 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


rascal, as I’m terribly afraid he is, I’ll shoot him, 
if they put a halter on my neck the next moment.” 

“ Don’t shoot me, Frank,” cried Estelle, laugh- 
ing, and catching his last words as she bounded into 
the arbour. “ Bessy, mother says you mustn’t stay 
here any longer, for the dew is beginning to fall. 
Aunt Patty wants you to cut out some more hex- 
agons for her bed-quilt, and I want you to press 
those flowers for me I gathered this morning. 
Everybody wants you in the house’.” 

“ Not Homer, if Victorine is near,” said Frank. 

“No, perhaps not,” answered Estelle, thought- 
fully ; “ they are reading a book together, and Mr. 
Selwyn is showing some pictures to Emma and 
explaining them all beautifully. But Edmund — 
I know Edmund wants you, for he is sitting alone, 
looking so serious, with his head leaning on his 
hand, just so and she rested her blooming cheek 
pensively on the palm of her right hand. Estelle 
ran before them to gather flowers sweeter than ever 
at that dewy hour. 

Frank said in a low voice to Bessy, “Do you 
know what I have been thinking lately ? What if 
Edmund should love Victorine ?” 

“ Heaven forbid !” exclaimed Bessy so loudly that 
Estelle dropped her flowers and looked round, but 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


215 


the next moment she was on the wing. “ Heaven 
forbid !” continued Bessy, in a lower, more earnest 
tone. “ What wretchedness would it bring on 
himself! What misery on others! Breathe not 
such a supposition in Homer’s ear, if you would 
not drive him mad.” 

“Fear not, Bessy; I have more consideration 
than you think I have. But I am vexed that 
Homer took it into his gloomy head to fall in love 
with Victorine while Edmund was away. He 
isn’t fit to be a lover. She thinks she loves him 
because he was the first one that ever bowed at her 
shrine, and she was proud of taming such a lion. 
But she fears him now more than she loves him, 
and at the bottom of her heart I know she must 
often wish that Edmund had wooed her instead of 
Homer. Who could help loving Edmund ? I do 
not think it any disgrace for a girl to fall in love 
with him, even unauthorized and unasked. His 
every glance and smile have witchery in them. 
Victorine’s too. Such a splendid girl ! I was ter- 
ribly smitten with her myself, once, when I saw 
her in that flowered frock. Such an eye ! such a 
mouth ! If it had not been for you, I should cer- 
tainly have rivaled Homer. Fool that I was, to 
let that — ” 


216 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


Frank bit his lips, and Bessy could not forbear 
to smile, though the new idea which he had sug- 
gested with regard to Edmund filled her with 
alarm. She had been so selfishly absorbed in her 
own regrets and sorrows she had scarcely noticed 
what was passing around her. She reproached 
herself for her want of sympathy, her forgetfulness 
of the happiness of others. When she entered the 
house, she took a seat by Edmund, who sat, as Es- 
telle had described, apart and abstracted, with a 
paler cheek and sadder brow than she had seen him 
wear since his return. “ How forgetful, how ne- 
glectful, have I been,” thought she, “of this dear, 
irreproachable brother of mine ! How completely 
swallowed up in self! Shall I brood in sullen 
secresy over the image of a stranger, oblivious of 
one whom I have always loved with such idolizing 
affections ? and he too may be unhappy.” 

These self-reproachful thoughts gave an inex- 
pressible softness to her countenance and tenderness 
to her manner, as, seated closely at his side, she 
leaned her arm in his lap, and her radiant ringlets 
glittered on his breast. There was something so 
endearing in her attitude, so supplicating in her 
look, so beautiful and graceful in her whole appear- 
ance, that Edmund gazed upon her for a moment as 


A UNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 217 

upon a lovely picture; then putting his arm around 
her, he drew her closer to him, and the shadow 
passed away from his brow. Estelle came running 
in with her white apron full of flowers, and sitting 
down on the carpet the other side of him, began to 
arrange them into groups. “Stop l” cried Laura, 
approaching them. “ Don’t move, any of you; 
you must be attitudinizing for a picture. I never 
saw anything so pretty in my life. I wish Vivian 
were here. Don’t you, Bessy ?” 

“No, she don’t,” answered Estelle, covering 
Bessy’s short, quick sigh with the sound of 1 her 
eager voice. “ She wouldn’t beg him to stay when 
I asked her, and she didn’t even bid him good- 
bye. I don’t like Mr. Vivian at all for not stay- 
ing and painting Aunt Patty and me, when he’d 
got the big canvas all ready. I heard Aunt Patty 
tell Bessy the other day, if he did come back, not 
to have anything more to say to him, for she liked 
Frank the best, after all.” 

“And did Aunt Patty say that?” exclaimed 
Frank. “Bless the dear old soul! I’ll go this 
minute and take a pinch of snuff with her and 
praise her bed-quilt till my tongue aches.” 

“ Wait for me,” cried Estelle, and gathering her 
flowers up in her apron, she scattered some of the 


218 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


roses over Edmund’s and Bessy’s heads, and flew 
off with Frank to give the rest to her beloved 
Aunt Patty. 

“ Edmund,” cried Laura, “you are really grow- 
ing dull. You don’t think of making yourself 
agreeable; you have given up all our pleasant 
walks and rides, except a walk in the rain some- 
times. I don’t believe any one cares about my 
company. I mean to go home to-morrow.” 

“ No,” said Edmund, catching by sympathy her 
gay tone. “ I plead guilty to your charge, but I 
will redeem my character. I will plan a voyage 
to the moon, if you please, or a walk to the summit 
of Mont Blanc.” 

“ When you run off into impossibilities, I know 
you don’t mean to do anything. If you would 
plan an excursion to yonder mountain” — and she 
pointed to the blue outline of one that gracefully 
undulated in the distance on the still glowing hor- 
izon — “there would be some gallantry, and practi- 
cability too, in the act.” 

“ Your word shall be law !” cried he. “ I have 
been on the summit, and a more enchanting pros- 
pect never opened on the ravished eye. The as- 
cent is steep, but the difficulty only adds interest to 
the expedition. We can ride to the foot of the 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


219 


mountain, and then begin our pedestrian journey. 
But it will never do for you, Laura, for you can- 
not go in satin slippers, and you never deign to 
wear anything of grosser materials.’’ 

“Oh yes; I would wear wooden shoes for the 
sake of the novelty. I am willing to put on a home- 
spun frock if you will promise to escort me to that 
delightful place. I am actually dying of ennui, 
and the very thought of something new gives me 
new life. Bessy, will you go? Abstracted Mr. 
Homer and sentimental Miss Victorine, will you 
go? Good Mr. Selwyn and grave Miss Emma, 
will you go ?” 

She went gayly from one to the other, making 
low, sliding curtseys without waiting for an an- 
swer, and laughing at their sudden look of cu- 
riosity. 

“Go where?” asked Homer, alarmed at the 
thought of a party of pleasure. 

“ To the mountain, which ahvays reminds me of 
Ossian’s ghosts, in its mantle of mist,” answered 
Bessy. 

“ If the mountain cannot come to us, I suppose 
we can go to the mountain,” said Mr. Selwyn, with 
an assenting smile, and the rest of the evening was 
employed in arranging this romantic excursion. 


220 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


They all went out to have a better view of the 
azure-crowned peak, and lingered till evening set 
a brilliant diamond on its brow, and then another, 
till it was encircled by a sparkling bandeau of 
starry gems. Beautiful did it look invested with 
the regality of heaven in the stillness of the mid- 
summer night. 

“ What was the name of this beautiful moun- 
tain ?” perhaps some geographer may ask, tracing 
the outlines of the map of imagination, undecided 
where to pause. Its name might be told, for it 
has a name, and it was baptized with the mists of 
morning, and it is a sweet, euphonious name given 
by the Indians who once hunted at its base. But 
let it now be incog. 

Beader, art thou a stranger far from the home 
of thy childhood and the scenes of thy youth? 
Does not the thought of the green fields and blue 
hills of thy native soil make thy pulses quicken 
and thy cheek glow ? Do you not seem to sit once 
more under the shade of some dear familiar tree, 
planted by the hand of your forefathers, and feel 
the same gale that fanned your infant brow rust- 
ling through its leaves? In the horizon that 
bounded your vision was there one lone hill rising 
like an angel’s throne above the valley that en- 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


221 


circled it which caught the first gleam of the ris- 
ing sun and arrested its last purple ray? And 
has not your mother directed your young eye to its 
summit, and talked to you of the days of old, 
when God came down upon the mountains and 
hallowed them with his presence; of Sinai with 
its thunders and lightnings and thick smoke ; of 
Nebo, where the aged prophet sat and gazed upon 
that land he was not permitted to enter; or of 
Calvary, once staged with the Redeemer’s blood ? 
If there is one spot among the granite hills round 
which such associations cluster, imagine this to be 
the same, and it will be sacred in your eyes. 

By the rising sun — No ; it was long before the 
rising sun that Estelle wakened, roused her sisters 
and knocked at her brother’s door. They w T ere to 
have a very early breakfast, so as to start before the 
heat of the day commenced. She had hardly closed 
her eyes the whole night, she was so excited at the 
thought of climbing to the tip top of a mountain, 
and seeing their own home too through a telescope 
after she reached there. She felt taller, older and 
wiser. She made Aunt Patty promise to sit with 
her head out of the window all day, so that she 
could see her too. If she had asked her to step 
out of the window on the mountain-top, she would 


222 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


involuntarily have answered “ Yes,” for she never 
dreamed of saying No to Estelle. The young party 
were in readiness long before the horses and car- 
riages came to the door, though Laura was the last 
to make her appearance, as usual, all & la mode . 

“/Now, Laura, you know you can’t clamber up 
the mountain in that dress,” cried Frank. “ Who 
ever heard of one’s putting on a fine fashionable 
silk to jump about among the rocks and shrubs ? 
Those kid slippers, too, and lace stockings ! Look 
at Emma and Bessy ; they can frisk about as they 
please, without danger of leaving half their clothes 
behind them. I beg pardon ; I don’t believe Em- 
ma ever was guilty of friskiness in her life.” 

“ It is difficult to frisk about, as you say, Frank, 
with a feeble body,” said Emma, “but I feel so 
much stronger and better now than I once did I 
don’t think I shall consent to stay in that little 
cave halfway up where you talk of depositing me.” 

“ Forgive me, Emma ; I didn’t mean to remind 
*you of one ill of mortality this delightful morning. 
You looked so bright and rosy that I forgot you 
were the invalid.” 

“ She’s thinking of what a charming ride she will 
have with Mr. Selwyn,” said Laura. “ If I were 
Emma, I should be tired of such an old beau.” 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP- PAG. 


223 


“ How ridiculous to call Mr. Selwyn a beau !” 
exclaimed Emma, with some asperity, “ and Mways 
to be calling him old ! He is very far from being 
an old man, and he has all the warmth and enthu- 
siasm of youth, still/ ’ 

“ I dare say he has,” said Frank, laughing, “ and 
he is one of the finest-looking men I ever saw. If 
I were injured, I would go to him for redress ; if 
I were weak, for protection; if poor, for relief. 
There, Emma, I have made a speech expressly for 
you. As for Laura’s calling him old, it is nothing 
but spite, just as children call everything old out 
of their reach. You remember the little boy who 
told his mother he hated and despised that old cake 
when she was resolute in denying it to him.” 

Here Frank stopped, and burst into a louder 
laugh at the sight of Estelle with a basket on her 
arm half as large as herself. 

“ What do you ask for your butter, chickens and 
eggs, my little market-woman ?” cried he, trying to 
peep under the lid, to her great displeasure. 

“ You are so rude, Frank !” cried she, pushing 
him back with a dignified air. “ You always pull 
everything so. I won’t give you any, if you don’t 
let my basket alone.” 

“ Well, if I can’t use one sense, I. can another, 


224 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP- BAQ. 


and the nose is as good as the eyes sometimes. 
You’ve got something there that smells very invit- 
ing, so I’ll be on my good behavior now. You 
look like a sweet little flower-girl, with that basket 
hanging gracefully on your arm, Estelle.” 

“Oh, I was a big, old, ugly market-woman just 
now. You change your tune too quick, Master 
Frank,” cried the child, archly curling her ruby 
iip.. 

“ I’m glad to see you in such fine spirits, Frank,” 
said Edmund. 

“All forced,” replied he, sighing, but his deep 
sigh only made others smile; “and yet there is 
something exhilarating in rising so early, breathing 
the clear morning air, and having the prospect of a 
fine ride, a fine dinner on the mountain, and ever 
so many charming adventures.” 

“ Oh yes !” said Bessy, with one of her long-ab- 
sent, sunny smiles, “ we must have some adventures, 
indeed. Victorine shall be the gypsy of our party, 
Homer the seer, and I will be the prophetess ; and 
oh, such visions of glory will I call up that you 
will all pray me to spare your aching sight.” 

“ Frank and I will be your knights,” said Ed- 
mund, rejoicing in Bessy’s returning sunshine; 
“ Laura and Emma two ladies fair, and Estelle—” 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


225 


u Our little market-woman,” added Frank. 

Here Mr. Selwyn drove up to the door in a 
splendid landau, which he had brought from Eu- 
rope, and which had excited the admiration of the 
country people. His noble and aristocratic appear- 
ance corresponded well with the elegance of his 
equipage, and the fashionable Laura would not 
have disdained a seat at his side. But the hand 
was first held out to Emma, who- sprang in so 
lightly that Frank might have accused her of be- 
ing guilty of friskiness. 

“ Who else will grace my chariot?” said Mr. Sel- 
wyn, looking smilingly on the fair faces in the 
doorway. 

“Me!” cried Estelle, tugging along with her 
basket ; “ I want to ride in that carriage.” 

Estelle seemed to flutter through the air, so 
quickly did Mr. Selwyn accomplish her wish, and, 
laughing and triumphant, she looked up to Aunt 
Patty, who, seated in her arm-chair, beheld from 
her open window the departing group. 

Edmund was to accompany Laura and Bessy in 
the family carriage, Homer and Victorine to ride 
together in an open barouche, and Frank to follow 
on horseback. 

“ Oh, how I wish mother and Aunt Patty were 


226 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


going!” cried Estelle in the prodigality of her joy; 
“ they would have such a nice ride.” 

Mrs. Worth, who stood on the threshold, shook 
her head and smiled, though a tear trembled in her 
eye. The figure of Mr. Selwyn reminded her of her 
husband, and the remembrance of her own youthful 
love-lighted days rushed back upon her soul. 

“ Don’t ride too far up the mountain,” said the 
anxious mother ; “ and, Emma, don’t walk too 
much ; you must promise to rest in the cave.” 

“ I will take excellent care of her,” replied Mr. 
Selwyn. “ Trust her with me, and she shall return 
in safety.” 

“ Come back before it is dark,” called out Aunt 
Patty; “the carriages may upset and your necks 
be broken.” 

“Don’t prophesy evil, Aunt Patty,” cried Ed- 
mund, kissing his hand to her in token of adieu ; 
“ if you do, you will be a Cassandra, doomed to be 
unbelieved.” 

They were just about to give the signal to depart 
when a man on horseback rode into the yard and 
handed a letter to Homer. He read it, knit his 
brow, looked at Victorine, and exclaimed, “ How 
unfortunate ! I am summoned away upon some 
business connected with my father’s estate which 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


227 


ought to have been attended to long ago. It can- 
not be deferred. What shall I do ?” 

“ Go, by all means,” cried Victorine, springing 
from the barouche; u I will stay behind.” 

“ Thank you, thank you !” exclaimed he, warmly 
pressing the hand which he still held ; “ then it is 
no disappointment to me. I did not wish to go 
but for your sake.” 

“Vo, no, Victorine must not stay,” cried every 
voice but Edmund’s ; “ there is room for her here, 
and here, and here. We will not go without Vic- 
torine.” 

“ Vo, it is better that I should stay, since Homer 
wishes it,”, said Victorine, but the flush on her 
cheek and the tremor of her voice denied the 



of her words. Homer remained silent, 


and made figures on the ground with his whip. 
Victorine felt his selfishness more than her dis- 
appointment, and her heart rebelled against him. 

“ Cannot I transact your business, . brother ?” 
asked Edmund, approaching Homer. “ I shall 
not be missed half as much, for there’s a driver to 
our carriage, and Laura and Bessy will be pro- 
tected by being in company with Mr. Selwyn and 
yourself.” 

Laura pouted, and declared she would not go 


14 


228 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


without a gentleman to escort her, and loudly pro- 
tested against Homer’s selfishness. 

“ No one can transact the business but myself, as 
the eldest son,” replied Homer, gloomily, watching 
the changing countenance of Victorine, “and as 
no one will regret my absence, it matters not to me. 
Victorine, I will not force your inclinations. I 
see you wish to go, and will probably be far 
happier without me.” 

“ How unjust!” cried Victorine, and all but 
Edmund echoed her words. Victorine cast an 
appealing glance at Mrs. Worth for direction and 
decision. She did not wish it supposed that she was 
so much under the influence of Homer as to fear 
to act contrary to his selfish will. Her high spirit 
revolted at this thought. Besides, she w T as an im- 
passioned admirer of the beauties of nature, and 
had often longed for wings that she might perch on 
that mountain’s top ; she really longed to go, and 
her eyes expressed this longing in their dark, re- 
splendent depths. 

“ Victorine might take Edmund’s seat, and Ed- 
mund ride on horseback, in company with Frank, 
as a general escort,” suggested Mrs. Worth, and 
the proposition was received with acclamations. 
Homer looked reproachfully, even indignantly, at 


229 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 

his mother, and Laura whispered to Bessy that a 
thunder-storm had risen, and that they had better 
make haste. 

“You are not angry with me, Homer?” said 
Victorine, gently laying her hand on his arm. “ I 
would not go, indeed,” added she, in a lower voice, 
“if it would not look so very strange for me to 
stay. You know it would.” 

“ Look !” repeated he, scornfully, drawing away 
his arm from the soft pressure of her hand; 
“ always thinking of what people will say. I care 
not what they say or think or feel. Why do you 
linger ? They have brought Edmund’s horse ; 
they are waiting for you. You are at perfect 
liberty to do as you please. I was called away 
very opportunely, very opportunely, indeed.” 

“ I agree with you entirely,” cried she, with 
spirit, stung to the soul by his bitter, taunting 
manner. “ Edmund, will you hand me to the car- 
riage, since Homer has not the gallantry to do it ? 
A horse on one hand and a maiden on the other 
make you look very much like a knight.” 

She said this with a smile as he led her along, 
but he knew that she was ill at ease, and his own 
cheek reddened and his heart throbbed. The car- 
riages rolled out of the yard ; Edmund’s and Frank’s 


230 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 


gay horses pranced in the rear, Estelle and- Aunt 
Patty kept nodding to each other till a turn in the 
road concealed the cavalcade from view, and Ho- 
mer stood with folded arms and compressed and 
trembling lips gazing after it. 

At first Edmund rode silently and sadly by the 
side of Frank, and Victorine kept her face studi- 
ously turned from her companions, but it was im- 
possible to ride silently and sadly long in such 
glorious sunshine, such genial air, the birds singing 
so joyously overhead and the landscape glowing 
with such life below. To ride, too, with such fine 
horses, whose feet kept such perfect time on the 
smooth, hard, beaten, road ! there was joy in the 
motion, there was joy in the mere consciousness of 
existence. Then the spirits of youth are so elastic, 
and rebound so high after a sudden pressure, it is 
not strange that every cloud dispersed, and that 
nothing was heard but merry voices and nothing 
seen but smiling faces. 

The road grew more rough and rocky as they 
approached the mountain, which began with a 
gentle acclivity, growing gradually more and more 
steep, till they came to a kind of green platform, 
where they considered it expedient to leave their car- 
riages and continue their journey on foot. Emma 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG . 


231 


cast an anxious glance up the precipitous path, 
which seemed in some places perpendicular, and 
thought she might possibly welcome the cave as a 
cold resting-place. Laura looked down on her del- 
icate slippers, and thought it possible the sharp 
rocks might wound her feet. Estelle looked at her 
basket, and thoug’ht it might feel too heavy before 
she reached the top, but she could not be persuaded 
to leave it behind. The rest felt too much like 
young eagles longing to try the strength of their 
wings, and to fly nearer the dwelling of the sun, to 
be daunted by the prospect of danger, difficulty or 
fatigue. Bessy and Victorine, eluding the arms 
that would have assisted their ascent, leaped from 
rock to rock and swung from bough to bough in 
all the joy of independence. The spirits of both 
were more buoyant from the pressure that had been 
weighing them down. What if their dresses did 
get caught by the brambles and the sharp points of 
the rocks? They were not afraid of their being 
torn, and went laughing on. But poor Laura ! she 
left here and there a shred of silk and a shred of 
lace ; her shoes slipped down at the heel, her lace 
stockings burst into large holes, and she was ready 
to cry with vexation. Her only consolation was in 
clinging to Edmund’s arm, whom she compelled to 


232 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


lift her up every steep rock and over every narrow 
chasm. Frank laughed at her dishevelled appear- 
ance, and bade her admire the superior grace and 
activity of her companions, who paused sometimes 
in their airy journey and looked back with glowing 
cheeks and triumphant eyes. 

“ How far is it to the cave?” asked Emma, 
panting for breath and pale from fatigue. “ I 
am afraid I can go no farther.” 

“ It is but a little distance on the right hand,” 
cried Edmund; “keep up your spirits a little 
longer. I think I hear t]jLe gurgling of the spring 
that gushes hear.” 

“You have not leaned on me as you ought,” 
said Mr. Selwyn. “ I could have carried you as 
easily as I could a child.” 

“Oh no!” cried Emma, the colour coming back 
to her face ; “ I have taxed you too much already.” 

But before she had time to resist the motion she 
was cradled lightly on his left arm and borne along 
amidst the shouts of Frank and the merry laughter 
of her other companions. Edmund was right: 
the gurgling waters of the spring did murmur in 
their ears, and in a few moments they saw the 
mouth of the moss-covered cave, a natural inn 
kept by kind Nature herself for the refreshment of 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 233 

the weary traveller. As soon as Mr. Selwyn had 
released the abashed but grateful Emma he went 
kindly back for little Estelle, who was too much 
of a heroine to complain, but whose short, hard 
breathing and scarlet cheeks showed the efforts she 
was making to achieve her own ascent. 

“ I cannot go one step farther/’ cried Laura, 
throwing herself down on a rode ; “ my shoes are 
both burst open, my stockings torn off my feet 
and my frock all ripped and dropping to pieces. 
What a horrible road ! what briars and rocks ! It 
is not fit for a Christian to travel. I’m sure I wish 
I never had thought of this old mountain.” 

“ Those young heathen look very comfortable,” 
said Mr. Selwyn, smiling, and looked toward Vic- 
torine and Bessy, who had thrown their bonnets on 
the ground, and leaning over the spring, scooped 
the cold water in the hollow of their white hands 
and drank it with laughing eagerness. Their plain 
white linen robes fell in untattered and graceful 
folds to the edge of the stream, and the contrast of 
their beautiful hair as their heads touched each 
other, golden brown and raven black twining 
and curling together, could not be more strikingly 
displayed. 

“ Wait !” cried Estelle ; “ I have a silver cup in 


234 


A TINT PATTY’S SOP APS AG. 


my basket which I brought on purpose to drink 
out of; and lifting the mysterious lid, she proudly 
drew it forth, and claimed the office of cup-bearer 
to the rest. They all declared that the nectar of 
Jupiter was not half so refreshing as that cool 
draught of water from the silver cup, and that his 
blooming Hebe could not be named in the same 
day with theirs. They admired the symmetrical 
arch of the cave, the green velvet of the moss that 
variegated the gray of the rock, the sweet sound 
of the gushing spring, and wished they were her- 
mits, that they might live there free from the cares 
and troubles of the world. There was a large flat 
rock in the centre of the cave which looked like a 
natural table, and broken pieces of rock scattered 
around which answered all the purposes of chairs. 
Emma was delighted with the thoughts of remain- 
ing there, and produced Ossian’s poems, which she 
had brought on purpose to read in that congenial 
cave, but Laura sat gloomily on a rock, her feet 
gathered under the skirt of her tattered dress, de- 
claring they should never catch her on a mountain 
again as long as she lived; she was afraid, too, to 
stay in that lonely cave, afraid of robbers, snakes 
and wild beasts. Mr. Selwyn offered to remain 
and guard the cave, but Emma would not listen to 



Bessy and Victorine drinking at tlie spi'ingin the moss-covered cave. “ And 
leaning over the spring, Bessy and Victorine scooped the cold water in the 
hollow of their white hands, and drank it with laughing eagerness ” 


Page 233. 


















































































AUNT PATTY’S ^SCRAP-BAG. 235 

this proposition, as she expected a servant every 
moment with the materials for a cold collation 
of which they were all to partake when they de- 
scended, and that servant would be a sufficient pro- 
tection. She and Laura would surprise them with 
a “ table spread in the wilderness,” and they wanted 
no witnesses to the mystery of preparation. Estelle 
lingered a moment, hesitating whether to go or 
stay, but the pride of looking through a telescope 
at length decided her, and committing her basket, 
with a long whisper, to the care of Emma, she took 
Mr. Selwyn’s hand and recommenced her journey 
in high spirits. Frank caught Bessy’s arm before 
she could begin her bird-like flight, and she was 
soon obliged to acknowledge that she could not 
have dispensed with his aid, so steep and tangled 
did the path become. Edmund and Victorine were 
thus inevitably thrown together, though they had 
both endeavoured to avoid the contact. Victorine 
was at first painfully embarrassed from the remem- 
brance of her last conversation with Homer, whose 
stern, melancholy countenance seemed bending 
above, reproaching her for her innocent enjoyment. 
But embarrassment was soon lost in excitement; 
sometimes, when she thought she had secured a 
firm footing on the rocky steps and a firm hold of 


236 


AUNT FATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


the slender boughs that shaded the wayside, her 
foot would slip and the bough would break, and 
had it not been for the arm of Edmund, she would 
have fallen down the natural ladder they were as- 
cending. Sometimes they rested on a cradling 
branch that curved over the path, and Edmund 
made a fan of the leaves to cool her £rlowin°* 

O <3 

cheeks. He could have done no less for a sister, 
and yet Victorine knew, if Homer should unex- 
pectedly emerge from the thick woods that skirted 
the path, he would renew the accusation whose re- 
membrance still thrilled through her heart. Per- 
haps, too, Edmund blamed her for coming. He 
alone had been silent when every other voice urged 
and insisted. She began to reproach herself for 
exposing herself to his blame, and impulsively she 
gave utterance to her feelings. 

“ I fear you think I was wrong not to yield to 
Homer’s wishes,” said she, without lifting her eyes. 
“ You are always so ready to sacrifice your wishes 
to others.” 

“ I suspect Homer himself would have regretted, 
upon reflection, such an unnecessary sacrifice,” re- 
plied Edmund, after a slight pause. “ In his cooler 
moments he is always just and generous.” • 

“Ah! but his cooler moments — ” “Come so seU 


A UNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 237 

dom” she was about to add, when she checked the 
expression. There was something in Edmund’s 
countenance that forbade all conversation on this 
subject — something so foreign to its usual ingen- 
uousness that it repelled and disconcerted her. 

“ Let us go on/’ said she, rising ; “ I am rested 
now, and Estelle is calling to us from Mr. Selwyn’s 
shoulder, which she has mounted in state, and 
Bessy and Frank have reached the top of the lad- 
der, and are waving their handkerchiefs in tri- 
umph.” 

Victorine and Edmund soon joined them, and 
from the stepping-stones on which they stood the 
road rose smoother and more inclined. The ascent 
was comparatively easy, the crooked path becoming 
straight and the rough one grassy. 

“ We must all take a stone in our hands before 
we leave this rocky ledge,” cried Edmund, “to 
add to the pyramid on the top of the mountain. 
There is a complete Stonehenge there. Every 
traveller is obliged to carry one, and to engrave 
his name as a memorial of his presence.” 

They all selected those which had the fairest and 
broadest surface, and, thus laden, pressed on with 
eager footsteps. They could see the summit ; they 
had promised not to look back, so that the view 


238 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


might burst upon them in one full blaze of beauty, 
and, more honourable than Lot’s wife, they did not 
break their pledge. 

“A race!” cried Frank; “ who shall have the 
first sight?” 

He started off with the speed of a fiery colt, but 
dropping the stone, and pausing to pick it up, Ed- 
mund ran by and reached the goal at the same mo- 
ment with Mr. Selwyn, who had always been in 
advance. He leaped upon the pyramidical stones 
and waved his hat in the air in token of victory. 
As he stood thus, his figure defined on the clear 
blue heavens, his fine hair waving from his brow, 
his cheeks flushed from exercise and excitement, 
he might have been compared to a young Apollo 
just lighted on the “ heaven-kissing hill.” 

“ I too have won the goal,” cried Frank, giving 
a sudden spring, determined to surpass Edmund 
and reach the top of the mound at one leap. But 
not quite accomplishing his exploit, his feet de- 
scended on a sliding stone, which, rolling from un- 
der him, brought him rolling after it to the ground, 
a monument of “vaulting ambition which over- 
leaps itself.” 

“Oh, Frank, are you hurt?” exclaimed several 
sweet voices in a breath. 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP- B^iG. 239 

“ No,” cried he, springing up as suddenly as he 
had fallen, and shaking the dust from his coat ; “ I 
only measured myself for your amusement.” 

Frank had every reason to think he had accom- 
plished his object by the peals of laughter which 
rang through the mountain air, in which he joined 
himself most heartily. But mirth was soon ab- 
sorbed in silent, intense admiration. An overpow- 
ering sense of beauty and sublimity soberized and 
subdued their gay spirits. It seemed as if they 
were the only dwellers of creation, so high and 
lone they stood, so far and still stretched the world 
around them, so deep and motionless appeared its 
repose. The glad hum of life ascended not to 
them ; even the smoke of the valley melted in the 
sunbeams before it reached their height, and the 
trees, though they bowed in the breeze, only pre- 
sented to the eye a surface of immovable green. 
Everything slept below, but how strong and ex^ 
cellent was the wakeful principle of life in their 
bosoms ! How pure and invigorating the moun- 
tain air that floated around them free from the ex- 
halations of earth, un contaminated by the breath 
of man and fresh as from the bowers of Eden ! 
No sound was heard save the wind-organs of that 
mountain cathedral, which stole through its rocky 


240 AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 

aisles and winding corridors, swelling as with the 
breath of a thousand invisible minstrels. 

The mingled exclamations of “ Beautiful ! sub- 
lime ! glorious !” succeeded the transport of mute 
admiration. Bessy alone continued silent. She 
could not express her emotions ; she felt too near 
heaven to use the language of earth. The divine 
spell of poetry was upon her, and her eyes kindled 
with inspiration. 

“ Look at Bessy !” cried Frank ; “ she’s making 
poetry, I know. That’s the way she looks when 
she’s inspired.” 

“ Well, give me pencil and paper,” said she, 
smiling, “ and I will go to that shaded spot yon- 
der, and if you will promise not to disturb me, I 
will try to do homage in measured verse to the 
lone spirit of the mountains.” 

“ Here’s pencil and paper,” answered he, u but 
I know it is only a stratagem to be alone. Re- 
member, if you return without the poetry, all the 
thunders of Olympus will reverberate round your 
head.” 

She turned away, laughing, toward the little 
cove that she promised should be converted into a 
Parnassian grove, and the lovely muse soon van- 
ished from their sight. 


AUNT TATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


241 


" Now please let me look through the telescope,” 
said Estelle. “ Aunt Patty will get tired sitting 
so long at the window.” 

Mr. Selwyn took a cylinder from his pocket, and 
drawing it out to a surprising length, considering 
its original size, placed it in the direction of the 
homestead. 

“ This is only a pocket telescope,” said he, “ but 
it is a very powerful one, and if you look very 
steadily, perhaps you can see Aunt Patty take a 
pinch of snuff.” 

Estelle shut up one eye and strained the other 
open wider than she had ever done before, but 
she could only see a glimmering of sunshine 
through a round frame. She was ashamed, how- 
ever, to acknowledge a complete failure, and said 
she saw something that looked like Aunt Patty, 
but she was not quite certain. Yictorine’s steadier 
gaze beheld, indeed, the white walls they had so 
recently left gleaming through the trees. She 
held the glass, and sought to guide Estelle’s 
wavering glance. 

“ What do you see now ?” 

“ I see Aunt Patty’s profile.” 

“ Oh no; that is a chimney you. are looking at; 
you must give up the idea of seeing her from this 


242 


A UNT PATTY’ S SCRAP-BAG. 


distance. But see the spires of the churches ; see 
the dome of the academy; and look all around, 
how many beautiful towns are lying at our feet !” 

Estelle soon became tired of shutting up one eye 
and straining the other to look through so narrow 
a compass, when nature, like a gorgeous map, was 
unrolled for her gaze. She became tired of stand- 
ing, too, and sitting down on the pile of stones, 
began to think how tiresome it would be to go 
down the steep places they had climbed with so 
much difficulty. She was sorry she had not stayed 
with Emma and Laura in the moss-covered cave 
by the side of the bubbling spring. She was sorry 
she had left her basket behind ; a piece of cake 
would taste so pleasant on the top of those old 
gray stones. 

“ What are you doing, Frank?” inquired Ed- 
mund, approaching him as he knelt on one knee 
bending over the ground. 

u I am only immortalizing your names by 
engraving them on the rocks,” replied he. “ I am 
writing them impromptu. I have no occasion to 
retire to a grove to compose, like Bessy.” 

Edmund looked over his shoulder and read 
laughingly the couplets traced on the stones with 
the point of his penknife : 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


243 


“ 1 Here is the name of Bessy Worth, 

The fairest nymph of all the earth !’ 

Well done for Bessy ! It’s a pity she hasn’t a more 
poetical name. 

1 And next to her is Victorine, 

A la Franpaise, our gypsy queen.’ 

Why, Frank, you must be inspired as well as 
Bessy. 

1 Here is the prudent, wise Estelle, 

With chickens, butter, eggs to sell.’ ” 

“ Ain’t you ashamed to put that there, Frank, 
where it will last for ever,” cried Estelle, angrily, 
“ and where everybody can see it as long as I 
live?” 

“ Never mind, Estelle,” said Edmund; “hear 
what he says of himself : 

‘ The immortal name of Francis Wharton, 

The greatest poet ever thought on.’ ” 

“ You made that yourself as you read, Edmund, 
but it is worthy to be written on everlasting tablets. 
Your own needs no epithet to speak its worth, and 
I dare not jest with the revered name of Selwyn. 
Let us go and peep at Bessy in her Parnassian 
grove, and see whether the muses are gathered 
around her.” 

Bessy had wandered from the rest, not so much 

to write as to think and commune with her own 
15 


244 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


glowing thoughts. The remembrance of Vivian 
rose painfully before her in view of such magnifi- 
cent scenery — scenery which a pencil like his alone 
could delineate. She recalled the eloquence, the 
passion, of his language, the soul that flashed from 
his shifting glances, and sighed to think how dull 
and commonplace every other being seemed in 
comparison. “I will not dwell on recollections 
like these/’ she said to herself, sitting down upon a 
rock and spreading the paper upon her knee. “ I 
will yield myself to the holy influences of Nature, 
who smiles so kindly on her wayward child.” 

The holy influences of Nature thus wooed 
breathed on the imagination of Bessy, and with 
the look of a young sibyl she began her poetical 
tribute to the genius of the mountain. Thus 
flowed the invocation : 

“ Beautiful mountain ! like amEastern king 
Thou wear 5 st thy diadem of burning gold, 

While the rich hues the shifting sunbeams fling 
In purple royalty are round thee rolled. 

u And thou art beautiful when dark-browed night 
Comes with her silver chandelier to throw 
A starry mantle o’er thee : oh how bright, 

Through the soft gloom, its folds of glory flow ! 

“Most lovely thou, when, kneeling at thy feet, 

Half veiled in mist, the blushing morn is seen ; 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


245 


When wakening gales thy regal presence greet, 

And dewy flowers from their green couches lean. 

“ Beautiful mountain ! image of the sofll 
Rising serene above the clouds of time, 

Girdled with light, though clouds beneath it roll, 

Looking to heaven, immovable, sublime. 

11 The sunbeams love thee, for their brightest ray 
At morn and even lingers on thy brow ; 

The night-dews love thee ! Nature’s pearls, they lay, 
Melting in smiles, on every forest bough. 

“ Beautiful mountain ! — ” 

Bessy paused and looked upward ; the warmth, 
the enthusiasm, of genius glowed on her face. She 
pushed back the tresses that clustered too thickly 
over her brow, and repeated aloud, “ Beautiful 
mountain !” A soft, low sigh seemed to come like 
the echo of her words. She started, and the pencil 
dropj)ed from her hand. Was it a dream of the 
imagination or a figure of flesh and blood that 
stood leaning against a rock not far from the spot 
where she was seated ? One moment she gazed in 
wild surprise, then springing forward, forgot every- 
thing in the rapture of that sudden recognition. 
“ Vivian!” “ Bessy l” The next moment she 
was in the arms of Vivian, and their hearts, lately 
sundered, throbbing against each other as if they 


246 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


were never again to separate. Perhaps, had they 
met thus suddenly in a house “ made with hands,” 
the formalities of life would have kept them apart, 
and they would have passed each other coldly and 
silently. But here, in the midst of the loneliness 
and grandeur and freedom of nature, the artificial 
restraints of society were forgotten, and soul 
answered soul as God created them to do. This 
celestial communion, however, was of short dura- 
tion. Bessy was brought back only too soon to 
the hard realities of life. 

“ Bessy, Bessy, have you finished your poetry ?” 
exclaimed the laughing voice of Frank, and, 
headed by the speaker, the whole party emerged 
from the shade of the rocks and shrubs, and stood 
rooted with astonishment at the sight of Vivian 
and Bessy hand in hand still as two statues carved 
out of the rock on which they leaned. Frank had 
broken the spell. Vivian drew away his hand 
with a sudden motion. The impassioned expres- 
sion of his countenance changed, the fire of his eyes 
was extinguished in the coldness of pride. 

“ Have you dropped from the clouds, Vivian ?” 
said Mr. Selwyn, who rejoiced at the reappearance 
of his young friend, and whose suspicions as to the 
cause of his departure were now fully confirmed. 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP- BAG. 247 

a We have all reason to complain of your neglect, 
but if you will promise amendment for the future, 
we will try to get you absolution for the past.” 

“ Have you been on the mountain all this time, 
Mr. Vivian ?” asked Estelle. “ Oh, I know ; you 
have been living in the cave where Emma is 
now.” 

“ I have not quite turned hermit yet,” answered 
Vivian, with an involuntary smile, “ though I ac- 
knowledge I slept last night in the cave. I have 
been in the neighbourhood of the mountain for 
several days,” added he, turning to Mr. Selwyn, 
“ where I have been detained by indisposition. I 
could not be resigned to leaving the country with- 
out witnessing a prospect of which I have heard so 
much. I was too weary to return last night, and 
making myself a pillow of moss, I reclined very 
comfortably on my bed of rock.” 

“ Leave the country !” exclaimed Edmund. “ I 
thought you intended to remain till Mr. Selwyn 
and myself made our second tour. I have been 
thinking, lately, of getting Mr. Selwyn to hasten 
our departure, or to allow me to go before him as 
his avant-courier .” 

“You, Edmund!” cried Bessy — “you so anx- 
ious to leave us ? How unkind !” She felt that 


218 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP- BAG. 


another was unkind too, but her wounded spirit 
refused to give utterance to the thought. 

“ You too, Edmund !” echoed the heart of Vic- 
torine, but she spoke not. The idea that he was 
about to banish himself for Homer’s sake took 
possession of her mind, and she wished she had 
never left the sunny shores of France. 

“You, Edmund!” repeated Mr. Selwyn, press-* 
ing his hand with a warmth of which he was not 
aware. He read deeply the mysteries of the human 
heart, and he had lately watched him with intense 
anxiety. He saw that his prophecies were being 
fulfilled, and that, if Edmund remained, a web of 
inextricable misery would be woven around him. 
“You are right, my boy,” continued he, “and you 
have reminded me of my duty. If you, when 
manhood is only in its morn, grudge a few hours 
of inactivity, surely I, who have reached its merid- 
ian, should hoard my moments better. I have de- 
voted myself to the service of my country, you to 
mine — both, I trust, to the service of God. In a 
few years you will be established in professional 
life, I shall sigh for retirement and rest. I am 
grateful to my youthful monitor.” 

The animated approbation of Mr. Selwyn’s man- 
ner, the cordial pressure of his hand, told Edmund 


A UNT PA TTY >S SCRAP-BAG. 249 

that his motives were understood and appreciated, 
and the gratitude he had before felt seemed light 
to that which now filled his bosom. 

“ Isn’t it time to go back to the cave ?” asked the 
weary, hungry Estelle. “ Emma and Laura will 
be so tired waiting for us.” 

“You will come with us, Vivian?” said Ed- 
mund. 

“Vivian will follow with me,” cried Frank. 
“ I wish to speak with him a few moments, if he 
does not refuse me the honour.” 

Bessy turned very pale, and looked at them both 
in alarm. 

“ I have nothing to say,” added Frank, “ which 
I am not willing the whole world should hear, yet, 
from motives of delicacy, I should prefer, for a few 
moments, his private ear.” 

There was a serious dignity in Frank’s manner 
which became him well from its novelty, and even 
Vivian was not proof against its influence. 

“ I wished to speak to you,” said Frank as soon 
as they were alone, “ because I thought a few words 
from me might explain a very unhappy misunder- 
standing. We parted in anger, and I cannot de- 
ceive you by saying I like you now : that, perhaps, 
I shall never be able to do ; but I do not want to 


250 AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 

make you unhappy without a cause. You look 
upon me as a rival ; I have tried to rival you, but 
in vain ; I thought I had a prior claim to yours, 
but I am mistaken. I am convinced that Bessy 
can never be more to me than a friend. If she is 
willing to be more to you, I will not stand as a 
stumbling-block in the way to her happiness or 
yours.” 

There was a manly truthfulness in Frank’s looks 
and manner that was perfectly irresistible. 

“ I must, I do, believe you,” cried Vivian, grasp- 
ing his hand with excessive emotion, “ but they 
told me that you had loved each other from child- 
hood — that you had been betrothed for years.” 

" Nothing but a mischievous story to sport with 
your credulity,” cried Frank. “I think I know 
its source, and blush for it. I suspected at the 
time the cause of your flight, but I was selfish 
enough to be willing to profit by it. I tried to take 
an ungenerous advantage, and have been served 
as I ought. But I did not then know how deeply 
the affections of both were engaged. Thank 
Heaven, I have not discovered it too late I” 

Frank was not given to heroics, but he felt a 
strange choking in the throat and fulness of the 
heart when Vivian wrung his hand, then threw his 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


251 


arm oyer his shoulder and actually wept upon his 
breast. 

“ Do not despise me for my weakness,” said he ; 
“ I can bear grief, agony and despair, and have 
borne them, without a tear, but joy so sudden com- 
pletely unmans me. Oh, you do not know what 
wretchedness I have suffered, what wild, desperate 
plans I have formed, while flying from place to 
place, seeking in vain to escape from myself, and 
now hope, joy, ambition, are all new-born within 
me, created again by you — you, so generous, so 
disinterested ! What can I say or do to prove my 
gratitude ?” 

“ Nothing,” replied Frank, wiping the moisture 
from his eyes and brow. u It is excessively warm on 
this mountain. I said I never should like you, 
but I begin to do it already. If we are not friends 
before long, it will be your own fault. Come, let us 
follow our companions, for I know Bessy’s little 
heart is palpitating with a thousand fears.” 

When the young men approached arm in arm, 
Frank’s face scarcely less irradiated than Vivian’s, 
Bessy could scarcely repress the grateful thanks- 
giving that rose to her lips. Nothing had been 
explained to her, yet she knew that all was right, 
and that Vivian was restored to her once more. 


252 


AUNT PATTY.' S' SCRAP-BAG. 


“Will yon accompany us now, Vivian?” said 
Mr. Selwyn, extending his hand with a cordial 
smile. 

“ If you will receive such an ungrateful vagrant 
among you,” answered he, his face reddening even 
to his temples. 

“ I see no one who looks discouragingly upon 
you but Bessy. You had better try to propitiate 
her on our way to the cave, or perhaps you will be 
excluded from its entrance, and after fasting all 
night I should think you would have no objection 
to share the feast which I understand the good 
fairies are preparing for us.” 

While he was speaking, Mr. Selwyn took Es- 
telle’s willing hand and led the way to the down- 
ward path. 

“I believe I will take compassion on you, 
Frank,” said Victorine, laughing and blushing, 
“ since Vivian has stolen Bessy from you. I am 
afraid to let you go down the mountain alone, lest 
you should roll to the bottom. I will assist Ed- 
mund’s noble efforts,” added she, to herself ; “ he 
is/ the guardian of his brother’s happiness, and I 
will show him liow sacred I deem the trust.” 

Edmund lingered behind the rest, absorbed in 
such deep reflections that he started with astonish- 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 253 

ment when he found himself at the mouth of the 
cave. The tales of the Arabian genii seemed 
realized, for the rude cave was now transformed 
into a hospitable-looking dining-room, and the 
table of rock, first covered with a snowy cloth, was 
overspread with the comforts and luxuries of the 
homestead. Green boughs decked the corners, 
green leaves decorated the dishes, and Emma and 
Laura had garlands of green around their brows. 
The fairies, too, had been at work on Laura’s dress, 
for the rips and tatters were mended so neatly that 
one would hardly have recognized her for the 
dishevelled, slatternly maiden who was left sulking 
there in the morning. Mr. Selwyn suspected that 
Emma was the presiding fairy, for she had a thim- 
ble on her finger and her work-bag lay upon a 
rock. Laura scarcely refrained from screaming at 
the sight of Vivian, who answered her embarrassed 
greeting with a cold and distant bow. She saw at 
one odance that there was a reconciliation between 

o 

him and Bessy, and that her own duplicity must 
be discovered. Frank, too, looked coldly on her, 
and she imagined that every one watched herewith 
a suspicious eye. She began to feel that the por- 
tion of the false one must be shame. 

Bessy and Estelle were permitted to wait upon 


254 AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP- BAG. 

the table, as Emma and Laura had prepared it. 
Estelle brought the water from the spring in her 
silver cup, and Bessy, whose heart felt as light as 
the cygnet’s down, flitted round the board, making 
the cavern radiant with her smiles. 

u Why do you not eat, Victorine ?” said Emma. 
“The lady of the grotto will be angry if you 
slight her dainties.” 

“ Oh, I’ve been eating of fairy-bower fruit and 
drinking of fairy-well water, and I cannot partake 
of grosser food,” replied she. 

“ I am afraid Victorine will make but a poor 
traveller,” said Mr. Selwyn ; “ she looks pale and 
wearied.” 

“ She’s thinking of the thunder-storm that waits 
her at home,” whispered Laura to Emma, “ and I 
suspect Edmund is too, for he looks as if he were 
a hundred miles off. Does your head ache, Ed- 
mund ?” asked she, aloud. “ I think you make as 
poor a traveller as Victorine.” 

1 “I am sorry if I’ve established such a cha- 
racter,” replied he, “ since I shall be a wayfaring 
man so soon.” 

“ What do you mean, Edmund ?” asked Emma. 

‘ What pilgrimage are you meditating ?” 

“ I am going to take him with me once more,” 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


255 


said Mr. Selwyn, “ and we have concluded, on the 
mountain’s top, that we have been resting long enough 
for refreshment by the well-springs of social life.” 

Tears gathered into Emma’s eyes. “ What a 
blank we shall feel when you are gone !” said she ; 
“ we have been forgetting that life cannot always 
be as happy as it is now.” 

“ Suppose you and Bessy become our fellow- 
travellers ?” cried Mr. Selwyn ; “ we could have a 
delightful party, and so domestic it would seem 
like carrying the homestead away with us. I 
promised Bessy, two years ago, that she should 
breathe the inspiring air of a classic clime. I sus- 
pect her admiration for genius and the fine arts is 
not diminished, unless she feels an unconquerable 
aversion to some of their most gifted devotees.” 

“ Oh, I’m the worst traveller in the world,” 
cried Emma, shrinking from the idea of crossing 
the broad, magnificent Atlantic. “ My journey to 
the south almost appalled me, though I have half 
promised Uncle Woodville to return and spend the 
winter months in his family.” 

“ I think you must include me in your number 
of favoured ones,” said Vietorine. u I have been 
yearning lately to behold once more my transat- 
lantic home.” 


256 AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 

“ But Homer ?” exclaimed Edmund, suddenly. 

“ Homer could fit up this cave for a dwelling- 
place,” replied Victorine, colouring; “he would 
make the best hermit in the world.” 

“ He would want a fair spirit to be his minister,” 
said Mr. Selwyn ; “ then, I doubt not, the solitude 
of the mountain would be elysium to him.” 

“I want to go to Europe,” exclaimed Estelle; 
“ I want to see all the fine things Edmund has told 
me of. Wouldn’t there be room for me in the 
ship? Edmund says a big ship is like a little 
city.” 

“ Would you leave your mother, Estelle?” 

“ Couldn’t we take her, too ?” 

.“And Aunt Patty?” 

“Ah ! poor Aunt Patty ! She couldn’t take such 
a long journey. She’s lame now, and old. She 
would miss me too much. No, I couldn’t leave 
her behind.” 

“Verily, my child, thou art a miracle of con- 
stancy,” said Mr. Selwyn, “and thou slialt have 
tliy reward. I hope some older damsels will imi- 
tate thy fidelity, and not allow their affection to 
be chilled or diminished by the infirmities of na- 
ture. If there is a sight which angels and the 
Father of angels love, it must be that of innocent 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 257 

childhood winding itself, like a blooming garland, 
round the faded brow and chill\>osom of age.” 

“ He means a kind rebuke to me,” thought Vic- 
toria, “ but he knows not half the weight that is 
pressing my spirits down. Oh, my soul is ex- 
ceeding sorrowful, and whichever way I turn I 
see darkness and doubt and misery. I could bear 
wretchedness myself, but to be the cause of wretch- 
edness to others is more than I can endure with 
resignation.” 

The trouble of Victorine’s mind was depicted on 
a countenance which mirrored but too faithfully 
every emotion of her soul. When the signal for 
their departure was given, she became still more 
agitated. She dreaded the scene that awaited her 
return — the jealous strife, the withering sarcasm 
and the maddening accusation. She remembered 
the harrowing interview in the arbour, when she 
trembled before the might of her own roused pas- 
sions, when she first felt her full powers as a wo- 
man born to love, but to resist ; capable of sacri- 
fice, death, eyen martyrdom, provided they were 
not exacted by oppression or claimed, as a just 
tribute by an arbitrary will, but ready, also, to 
meet sacrifices and death and martyrdom sooner 
than submit a willing subject to an iron rule. 


258 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


While the rest were gathering bonnet and scarf, 
basket and book, running to dip their cup for the 
last time in the gush of the fountain or pulling 
the moss-wreaths from the silvery-gray rocks, 
Victorine sat absorbed in a reverie so deep she 
heeded not the bustle of preparation or the sound 
of departing footsteps. 

“ Good-bye, Victorine,” cried Estelle, turning 
back her laughing face ; “ you may have the frag- 
ments of the feast for supper.” 

“ Good-bye, Victorine,” said Frank ; “ I see you 
are going to remain to be the hermit’s fair rninis- 
trant. We’ll send him to his cell.” 

Victorine scarcely moved, so strong was the 
spell that mastered her. 

“ Victorine,” exclaimed Edmund, in a low voice, 
“ the shadows are beginning to lengthen.” 

She started quickly, and laughed at her abstrac- 
tion. “ I have been thinking of a name for this 
beautiful cave,” said she ; “ cannot you assist me ? 
And yet,” added she as they left the spot together 
and followed the steps of their companions, “ I had 
other and deeper subjects of meditation. I have 
been thinking of many, many things, and among 
others of your wish to hasten again from home. I 
have been so accustomed to speak impulsively to 


AUNT PATTY’S SC RAP- BAG. 259 

you as a brother and a friend I cannot endure this 
chilling reserve existing between us. Let me, dur- 
ing this last opportunity that may ever offer, break 
down the wall of ice which circumstances have 
built up, and which is rising higher and higher, 
and address you as I could have done two years 
ago.” 

“ No, no, Victorine,” answered he, with a vehe- 
mence of manner so unusual that she would gladly 
have recalled the words that excited it ; “ better a 
thousand times be as we are, cold, reserved and 
apparently estranged, than attempt to renew an in- 
timacy which would only produce the most fatal 
results. Would to Heaven we could be as we were 
two years ago !” 

“ Oh how difficult it is to be understood !” cried 
she, holding back the tears that were ready to gush 
from her eyes ; “ how difficult it is to know how 
to act in a situation like mine ! I wanted to tell 
you — and I claim this act of truth as a right which 
no human being has the power to wrest from me — 
that if I am so unhappy as to drive you from the 
home where you are so dearly loved, if it is out of 
regard to your brother’s jealous fears you are anx- 
ious to banish yourself, I will not allow such a 
sacrifice. I am resolved to depart myself, that the 
10 


260 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP- BAG. 


dwelling of my benefactress may recover the peace 
and happiness I have been the means of destroy- 
ing. I have a stepfather in France who has not 
forgotten the wild little savage he left behind. 
Your mother has refined that savage child. I will 
not make her wretched.” 

“ Do you think Homer would suffer you to de- 
part?” cried Edmund, pausing under the shade of 
an oak that bowed over the path. “ Do you think 
I could suffer you to do it ? My mother and sis- 
ters, would they be willing to resign you? You 
have spoken of my unhappy brother. We all 
know the malady which has followed him from the 
cradle to manhood, and will probably pursue him 
to his grave. Long before he knew or loved you 
I was the object of his intense jealousy, and my 
absence, not yours, is necessary to his tranquillity. 
No, Victorine, you have wrung the confession from 
me, and you may tremble for the consequences. 
It is for my sake, not yours, that I would fly — 
that I would build up a wall of separation between 
us high as the heavens and lasting as life. I can- 
not live near you any longer and be true to the 
vow that I’ve made my brother. True, did I say ? 
As there’s an avenging Providence, I feel that I’ve 
broken it already. Victorine, why did you force 


AUNT PATTY’S SCR APB AO. 


2G1 


this from me? You had robbed me of my hap- 
piness, and now you have wrested from me all I 
have left, my integrity.” 

Recoiling from the hand that clasped his arm, 
he leaned heavily against the trunk of the tree 
and covered his brow with his hands. Vietorine 
felt as if she stood oh the verge of a precipice, and 
that an abyss was yawning beneath her feet. • On 
the one side she saw the stern, commanding Homer 
threatening her with his malediction ; on the other, 
the pale, agitated, remorseless Edmund upbraiding 
her for his despair. Previously excited by the con- 
flicts of the day, fatigued by the walk and faint 
from fasting, her brain was in such a fevered state 
that her sensations bordered on frenzy. She had 
no power to control them, but rushing down the 
path with the speed of lightning, she caught hold 
of Mr. Selwyn’s arm, who was fortunately behind 
the rest, having committed Estelle to the care of 
Frank, and exclaimed in a strange, husky voice, 
“ Go to Edmund ! go to Edmund !” 

“ Good heavens !” cried he, excessively alarmed. 
“ What is the matter ? Where is he ?” 

“ Oh, I don’t know !” cried she, putting her 
hand to her head ; “ something has happened, but 
don’t tell Homer ; oh, pray don’t tell him !” 


262 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


“ Edmund, what is the meaning of this ?” cried 
Mr. Selwyn, for Edmund, raised from his parox- 
ysm of remorse, had pursued in terror the flying 
steps of Yictorine, and now stood pale as ashes 
before him. 

“ It means that I am unworthy to. be trusted/’ 
answered he ; "I know not what I have said, but 
I have uttered words that never can be forgotten. 
Let me go, sir ; I must be alone.” 

“ Not with such a face as that,” said Mr. Selwyn, 
in a severe tone. “ Would you carry confusion and 
terror to yon happy group? Would you make 
your mother’s heart bleed by a scene of family 
discord? Calm yourself, impetuous boy, and let 
reason resume its empire. I’ve been dreading 
something like this, and yet I had such a reliance 
on your honour and self-control I believed that 
you might be put in the very furnace of temptation 
without having your garments scorched. You 
blush, Edmund, you turn away your head, and 
you, Yictorine, you are weeping ; this excitement 
will subside with your tears. You must both 
make a strong effort to subdue your emotions, or I 
shudder at what the consequences may be. You 
are both young, my children,” added he, in a soft- 
ened voice and affectionately taking the hand of 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


263 


each, “ and in youth the passions are strong; wres- 
tle with them now, as Jacob did with the angel, in 
the strength of the Lord God, and you will come 
off conquerors; yield to them, and you will be 
miserable, degraded slaves through life.” 

“My imprudence has been the cause of all,” 
said Victorine, whose excitement, as Mr. Selwyn 
had foretold, had melted away in tears. “ Edmund 
is not to blame. I did not know what I was doing 
when I ran> to you. How weak, how foolish, I 
have been !” 

“ Think not of the past,” said Mr. Selwyn, earn- 
estly, “ but guard yourselves for the future. See ! 
Frank is coming back to learn the cause of our 
delay. Remember that the eyes of many are upon 
you. Remember an eye more keen and watchful 
than all is waiting your return. Edmund, my son, 
I have seen your struggles and gloried in your 
self-conquest. One moment of human weakness 
does not tarnish the laurels you have won. I 
know now the strength of your temptations, and 
if resisted henceforth, my confidence, esteem and 
love shall be doubled instead of diminished.” 

“ What is the matter?” said Frank, fanning him- 
self with his hat, for it was no light exercise to toil 
back the steep ascent. “We are all waiting on the 


264 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP- BAG. 


platform. Are you ill, Victorine ? The exertion 
has been too much for you.” 

“Yes,” said Mr. Selwyn; “Victorine has been 
overcome by fatigue. Her fairy-food has not sus- 
tained her for the extra call upon her strength 
which has been made. Go, Frank, and have every- 
thing in readiness. I will take Victorine in my 
landau, and Vivian can occupy her seat, you know. 
I am a kind of common father, and if one of my 
children requires peculiar care, I must take him 
under my charge.” 

“ How kind you are !” exclaimed Victorine, 
ready to fall at Mr. Selwyn’s feet in her gratitude 
and humility. She felt overwhelmed with shame 
at the expressions of sympathy and anxiety uttered 
by her young friends, who soon gathered round 
her. A 

“ I knew you would be sick,” cried Estelle, “ for 
you would not eat nor drink, and your eyes looked 
so heavy.” 

“ How shockingly you look,” said Laura, “ your 
eyes are so red and your cheeks are so flushed! 
You must have an inflammation of the brain. 
You are certainly sunstruck.” 

Victorine rejoiced when she found herself in the 
carriage safe from the scrutiny of Laura and side 


AUNT PATTY r S SCRAP-BAG. 265 

by side with the gentle Emma. But every motion 
of the carriage brought her nearer home, and un- 
known trials awaited her there. Just as they 
reached the foot of the mountain a horseman was 
seen galloping toward them. 

“ Look ! there’s Homer/’ exclaimed Estelle ; “ I 
know him by his black horse ; it’s all covered with 
foam.” 

“Has anything happened at home, Homer?” 
asked Emm^, bending anxiously forward, while 
Victorine drew back, shrinking from the glance 
which she saw was still dark and lowering. 

“ Ho,” replied he, turning his horse and riding 
by the side of the carriage, “ but you were so late 
I came on my return to meet you. I thought some 
accident had occurred. You must, have found some 
extraordinary charm in the place, to have lingered 
so long.” 

“So we did,” cried Estelle, eager to tell the 
news ; “ we found Mr. Vivian. He’s riding in the 
other carriage, and that’s the reason Victorine is 
with us. Poor Victorine ! she’s tired and starved 
and sick.” 

“ Is Victorine ill ?” he exclaimed, with a sudden 
change of voice ; “ why didn’t you tell me of this 
before ?” 


266 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


“ I am not ill now, Homer,” said Victorine, with 
so deep a colour mantling her cheeks it was impos- 
sible not to believe her words, “ but I’m not quite 
so much an eaglet as I thought I was.” 

“No,” interrupted Estelle; “she and Edmund 
stayed so far behind us all, and Mr. Selwyn had 
to go back for them, and then Frank went too; 
we were all so frightened about them. I believe 
Edmund is sick too ; he looks as if he was.” 

“ Estelle, you talk too much, entirely too much,” 
said Mr. Selwyn, excessively vexed at her ill-timed 
prattle, which had all the effect which he feared 
upon her brother. He knit his brow, bit his lips, 
and his hands visibly trembled on the bridle-rein. 
“ I thought I should be an intruder,” he muttered ; 
“it has all been arranged marvellously welJ.” 

The high-spirited horse champed his bits and 
tossed his mane, smarting from the goading spurs 
of his rider. With fiery eyes, dilated nostrils and 
foaming mouth he darted before the carriage, while 
Mr. Selwyn called upon Homer in a commanding 
voice to restrain him at the risk of his life. The 
horses of Mr. Selwyn, high fed and little used, 
caught fire from the impetuous motions of the other, 
and began to follow in a full gallop. 

“Hush!” cried Mr. Selwyn, putting his hand 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG . 


267 


over Estelle’s mouth that opened for a violent 
scream ; “ add not to the mischief you’ve already 
done by breaking all our necks. Keep still, and 
you are safe.” 

Taking the reins into his own hands, he so 
curbed their headlong speed that Emma and Vic- 
torine felt confident that a master-hand guided 
their course, and forgot their fears for themselves 
in anxiety for Homer. Estelle was so much mor- 
tified and wounded by Mr. Selwyn’s merited re- 
buke that it seemed doubtful whether she would 
ever speak again. It must be acknowledged that 
Estelle was somewhat spoiled. She was the young- 
est child, remarkably pretty and remarkably 
small for her age, the petted darling of the house- 
hold, and the especial idol of Aunt Patty. She 
had been so much accustomed to make unlimited 
demands on her social powers for the entertainment 
of the latter she forgot that every one did not lend 
her as delighted an ear. If she had been aware 
how much injury she was doing Victorine by the 
unguarded simplicity of her remarks, she would 
have wished herself dumb for life, the greatest 
penalty which could be inflicted upon her. She 
only knew that she had offended Mr. Selwyn, and 
she made the wise resolution of being very still 


268 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


and modest till she was reinstalled in his good 
graces. 

At length they were all safe at the homestead. 
Estelle’s tongue burned to be the first to run in and 
tell her mother that Vivian was come, but she re- 
membered that Mr. Selwyn had said that she 
talked entirely too much, and she suffered him to 
be his own herald. 

Bessy could not refrain from throwing herself 
into her mother’s arms in the fulness of her joy. 
u Dear mother,” whispered she, “ Frank has acted 
nobly ! It is he who has made us so happy. You 
must be kinder to him than you have ever been 
before.” 

Much as Mrs. Worth rejoiced at the return of 
Vivian and the magnanimous behaviour of Frank, 
she saw with regret that happiness was very far re- 
moved from the bosoms of some. Homer’s morn- 
ing conduct was a sufficient reason for Victorine’s 
depression, but the quickness of maternal love per- 
ceived that Edmund had a heaviness on his heart 
deeper than had ever weighed there before. Mr. 
Selwyn, too, had an anxious and troubled look, 
and his eye frequently rested on Edmund with an 
intensity of expression that was inexplicable to her. 
Homer did not appear ; his horse stood panting in 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


269 


the yard, but whither the master had gone to brood 
in sullen secresy over his own dark thoughts no 
one knew or asked. The erratic movements of 
the misanthrope were generally suffered to pass 
unnoticed. 

“ Why don’t you tell me pbout all the wonders 
you have seen, Estelle ?” asked Mrs. Worth, grieved 
to see that even Estelle looked sad. 

“ Mr. Selwyn thinks that I — I — talk too — 
much,” stammered she, blushing, and her eyes 
filling with tears. 

“And because I said that perhaps a little too 
hastily, I hope my little friend is not going to be 
dumb all the rest of her life?” said Mr. Selwyn, 
drawing her toward him with a smile of recon- 
ciliation. 

“I am afraid you troubled Mr. Selwyn very 
much or said something very improper,” said her 
mother, gravely. 

“ I only said that Victorine and Edmund stayed 
away off behind us, and that Mr. Selwyn had to 
go back for them, and Frank after him, and then 
Mr. Selwyn got angry, and Homer’s horse began to 
run, and our horses began to gallop, and — and — ” 
Estelle paused, conscious that in her vindication 
she was yielding to her besetting sin. 


270 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


A pang such as only a mother feels when she 
foresees the certain misery of her children pierced 
the heart of Mrs. Worth; she looked at Edmund, 
whose changing countenance confirmed her appre- 
hensions ; she looked at Victorine, and for the first 
time the dread that she had been nurturing in her 
bosom a false being unworthy of so sacred a dwell- 
ing-place came shudderingly over her. 

Frank, who had, as Bessy said, acted nobly 
throughout the day, regardless of himself and 
acutely alive to the feelings of others, began with 
his wonted hilarity to talk of their adventures, 
“ their hairbreadth escapes and imminent deadly 
perils,” not forgetting his own downfall. 

“ Poor Victorine,” added he, “ is too much of a 
fine lady to keep up with the wild flights of Bessy 
and Estelle. We were all shamefully forgetful of 
her, and left her in the lurch till Edmund, who 
is ever thoughtful for the comfort of others, took 
compassion on her, as she had done on me when 
Bessy left me for that Vivian,” emphasizing with 
much vehemence the name of his rival. “ She fell 
sick, and Mr. Selwyn went to the rescue. Now, 
had it not been for my sad downfall and Victor- 
in e’s fine-lady airs, we should have had a glorious 
day — a day to be remembered in the annals of 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


271 


history; a day which I am sure I shall ever re- 
member with gratitude, for I trust I have gained 
a lifelong friend, and I know there’s one happy 
heart will bless me in her prayers to-night.” 

“iNot only to-night, but for ever,” ejaculated 
Bessy, giving him a glance from her heavenly blue 
eyes that conveyed a thousand blessings. 

Vivian’s fine countenance became luminous with 
feeling. “You have indeed gained a friend,” he 
cried, “ who will ever associate you with the sweet- 
est and brightest moments of his existence.” 

Frank’s careless, natural narration relieved Mrs. 
Worth of her worst fears, and her conscience up- 
braided her for her transient injustice to Victorine. 
The current of her feelings was changed, and as it 
flowed more calmly on, the lovely, lovelighted face 
of Bessy was mirrored on the tide. 

Estelle, on whose weary eyes the dews of slumber 
were falling fast, was warned by her mother to retire. 
The affectionate child lingered on the threshold for 
a kind word from Mr. Selwyn, whose attention at 
that moment was occupied by another. Waiting in 
vain to catch his eye, she stole behind his chair and 
whispered, “ Pray forgive me for talking too much. 
I’ll try not to do so any more.” 

Mr. Selwyn caught her in his arms and im- 


272 


A TINT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


printed a kiss on her fair round cheek. “You 
must forgive me too, my darling Estelle, for speak- 
ing so harshly and putting my hand so roughly 
on those sweet lips. But the happiness and the 
lives of many were at stake, and I was obliged 
to be stern, to save them. One scream, and Aunt 
Patty might now be mourning over her lost dar- 
ling and her unfinished counterpane.” 

Estelle smiled through her tears, and went to bed 
with a lightened heart. Mr. Selwyn sought that 
evening an interview with Mrs. Worth. That day 
seemed destined to be marked in the annals of the 
family history. Mr. Selwyn, whose manners were 
remarkable for their elegant self-possession, was on 
this occasion visibly embarrassed, and Mrs. Worth 
waited in some trepidation for the communication 
he was about to make. 

“ I wished to speak with you, madam,” said he, 
after making some general remarks, “upon our 
contemplated tour. It is Edmund’s desire to go 
immediately, and whatever regret you may feel at 
parting with him so soon, I think your penetra- 
tion must perceive the wisdom of his resolution. 
Should he remain longer here, I fear that his hap- 
piness must be the inevitable sacrifice.” 

“ I dreaded as much,” replied Mrs. Worth. “ I 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP- BAG. 


273 


see but too well he is unhappy, and that he does 
not suffer alone. But must he for ever be an exile 
from his home ? Must he be made a victim to the 
dark passions of others ? — he who seemed born to 
make the sunshine of my life ! And yet I tremble 
while he remains. If I should oppose his going, I 
may bring a weight k of sorrow on my soul that 
would crush it to the dust.” 

She bowed her face upon her hands, and a silent 
prayer ascended to Heaven for fortitude to endure 
and strength to sustain. 

“Do not shadow out too sad a futurity,” said 
Mr. Selwyn ; “ I hope everything from this speedy 
separation. Edmund is so young, and such a well- 
spring of joy has till now been gushing in his 
soul, I cannot think of his green hopes being 
withered never to bloom again. Homer, if once 
united to Victorine, may, perhaps, find his troubled 
spirit lulled to rest on the bosom of wedded love.” 

“Homer’s spirit will never find rest in this 
world,” said the mother. “ He may have here and 
there a gleam of happiness, but it will be like a 
sun-ray on the roaring billows. No ; there is no 
such thing as rest for such a spirit as Homer’s. 
Yet why should I limit the power of the Al- 
mighty ? There is a peace which passeth all un- 


274 


A TINT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


derstanding which may yet dawn upon his soul. 
Oh that he might repose on the bosom of heavenly 
love!” 

“And now,” said Mr. Selwyn, “will you per- 
mit me to speak one moment of my own hopes and 
wishes ? I would not be selfish, yet I have identi- 
fied my happiness so closely* with yours and your 
interesting family I cannot separate it if I would. 
No man living knows how to attach a higher value 
to the blessings of domestic life. I once had an 
angel wife who made this world a paradise to me. 
She was taken from me, and no sweet child was 
left to ‘ hang upon my neck, and look resembling 
her/ My home was a desert ; I exchanged it for 
a public life, and sought in the exercise of exalted 
duties and in the bustle of stirring events oblivion 
for unutterable woe. Accident threw in my way 
the son of my early friend, and my widowed, 
childless heart yearned to adopt him as my own. 
I became domesticated, as it were, in the bosom of 
your lovely family, and all the sympathies of life 
have been reawakened in my bosom.” He paused, 
and Mrs. Worth trembled for the revelation which 
he was about to make. She honoured and esteemed 
him as the friend of her husband, she loved him 
as the friend and benefactor of her children, but 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP- BAG. 


275 


her heart was buried in the grave of her first and 
only love, and she felt, if ever woman did, the 
truth of these thrilling words : 

“ Oh what is any living love 
To that which cannot quit the dead ?” 

Mr. SelVyn rose and walked several times 
across the room without speaking, then stopped 
and laid his hand on the chair which supported 
Mrs. Worth. 

“ You must have anticipated/’ said he, in an 
agitated voice, “the avowal I am about to make. 
The manifestations of true affection cannot often 
elude the penetration of others. I fear you may 
think my hopes presumptuous, nay, even prepos- 
terous, and yet upon your decision depends the 
happiness of my life.” 

Poor Mrs. Worth ! she sat with her eyes bent 
upon the floor, a colour on her cheek bright as the 
first rose of youth. This was such a sudden and 
unexpected trial — to give pain to the noble and 
generous friend of her children, perhaps deprive 
them of their future protector, of one who might 
watch over them, if she, perchance, were laid low 
in the dust. Yet the thought of a second marriage 

seemed to her constant heart as great a sacrilege 
17 


276 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


as if her husband still walked hand in hand with 
her, living, loving and supporting. 

“ I see and do not wonder at your hesitation,” 
said he ; “ she is so young, and you may think that 
she regards me with only filial reverence. But 
Emma has the thoughtfulness and serenity of 
maturer years blended with the simplicity and ten- 
derness of youth. Prevented, from delicacy of 
health, from sharing the usual amusements of her 
age, she has acquired a sobriety of feeling and a 
kind of matronly grace of manner which make me 
forget the disparity of age. If I have your per- 
mission to ask her to be my wife, I am willing to 
hazard a rejection from her.” 

Mrs. Worth raised her eyes with a sensation of 
indescribable relief. Grateful beyond measure that 
she had not committed herself by uttering any 
words expressive of her misunderstanding of his 
proposal, astonished at the conquest of her youth- 
ful daughter, her unpretending, heaven-devoted 
Emma, and flattered by such a compliment from so * 
excellent and distinguished a man, she found it 
difficult to collect her thoughts so as to give him a 
clear and definite answer. 

“ She is so young,” was her first remark. 

" Yes, but I am old enough to guard her youth.” 


A UNT PATTY >S SCRAP-BAG. 


277 


et Her constitution is so frail.” 

“I will cherish her like a tender plant in my 
bosom. My strength shall be the stay of her 
weakness. I will be father and husband in one.” 

“You have indeed proved a father to all my 
children, and if by giving you one I can partly 
cancel my debt of gratitude, I ought to rejoice in 
the opportunity. But would you still keep your 
station in public life? Would you think of taking 
her to foreign climes ?” 

u I see you think I am asking too much of your 
friendship. But the sea-born breezes will bear 
strength upon their wings and finish the work of 
restoration commenced in a southern land. If you 
could send her across the ocean under the charge of 
a good physician, you ought to do it. I will be 
the best physician in the world, though she looks 
too well now to be on the invalid list. By and by 
I will come and settle down in some beautiful 
country-seat, perhaps near your own, where we 
may enjoy 

‘ An elegant sufficiency, content, 

Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books, 
Progressive virtue and approving Heaven.’ ” 

Mrs. Worth remembered how often her husband 
had applied this beautiful picture of domestic hap- 


278 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


piness to their own wedded life, and many a proof 
of recollected love moistened her eyes with the dew 
of memory. 

“ Edmund,” continued he, u shall not suffer from 
my present intentions. I have an ample fortune, 
which he still shall share. Vivian, too, requires 
my aiding hand. I will give him a broad stepping- 
stone to stand upon, and then his genius will 
build others, step above step, till he reaches a 
height of fame and fortune equal to his most lofty 
aspirations. Believe me, madam, a glorious des- 
tiny awaits that young man. Bessy is the child of 
genius herself, and their two souls meet and blend 
into one as naturally as two sunrays meet together 
as they unite. Oh, madam, I trust your children 
will all be happy yet. My friend will look down 
from heaven and rejoice over the loved ones he has 
left on earth.” 

“ I have no words to express my gratitude for 
your all-embracing kindness,” cried Mrs. Worth, 
“ and if the love of my young and unobtrusive 
Emma can in any way repay a mother’s debt, and 
if her heart answers to the wishes of yours, take 
her with the dowry of my blessings and my 
prayers.” 

Did Emma’s heart answer to Mr. Selwyn’s? 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAPS AG. 


279 


Had she been warned by premonitory symptoms 
of the approaching crisis ? She had been pleased 
and honoured by his extreme kindness and atten- 
tion, but she attributed it to the interest he felt in 
the daughter of his friend. Her modesty and sim- 
plicity. and his superior age, talents and fortune 
had prevented her from dreaming of the possibility 
of such a union. The idea of any one’s loving 
her when Bessy was near never entered her imag- 
ination. She might excite sympathy, kindness and 
esteem, but love was Bessy’s inalienable right. She 
herself was destined to be an old maid, and she 
had resolved to make that often aspersed name so 
lovely from the graces of the heart and mind that 
no one would shrink from wearing it. With such 
a humble estimate of herself, it is no wonder that 
Emma was overwhelmed with astonishment. 

Had the mountain which they had just ascended 
come down and knelt at her feet, she could not 
have experienced more amazement. But when the 
stunning effects of surprise were over, and she could 
realize that she was sought as a wife by the man 
whom she revered as the first of human beings, her 
gratitude was as deep as her humility. To be 
chosen as the companion of his intellectual and 
ennobling pursuits, the object of his chief tender- 


230 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


ness and care ; to have his arm of strength and soul 
of honour as a constant guard and support; to 
kneel at his side in prayer and commune with him 
of the mysteries of holiness ; to walk hand in hand 
with him through life and partake with him of a 
blissful eternity, — surely this was happiness enough 
for her meek and unambitious spirit. It was not 
long before she came to the conclusion that, while 
she cherished for him all the affection of a daughter, 
she could learn to love him with all the tenderness 
of a wife. 

When those sweet virgin sisters pressed their 
nightly couch, their hearts were too full for sleep. 
What a change in their life-prospects since the 
morning light ! and what a contrast in their own ! 
Bessy’s love partook of the warmth, the enthusiasm 
and poetry of her nature. Her imagination beau- 
tified and glorified her love. Her heart had not 
waited to know whether Vivian first loved her, but 
she had welcomed him, as she had once told her 
mother, as one known and loved in a remembered 
world; she was sure she would have chosen him 
from, the assembled universe as her fellow-soul, and 
had not circumstances thrown them together, she 
would have gone through life a lonely pilgrim 
sighing for the one being created for her. But now 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


281 


that being was found. They had met — they had 
loved — they were to be united for ever. Bessy 
was too happy to sleep. Her cheek’s glowing rose 
warmed the snows of her pillow, and her heart 
throbbed audibly beneath the folds of her white 
night-robe. 

While the two lovely sisters thus lay cheek to 
cheek and heart to heart in their vestal couch, while 
the holy stars looked silently and lovingly on them 
through their parted curtains, and ministering 
angels hovered with unseen pinions round their 
bed, there was another who kept lonely vigils, 
whose sighs stole on the silence of the midnight 
hour, and whose pillow was saturated with tears. 
Victorine could not sleep. The midnight hour 
found her bathed in tears ; the morning light flashed 
on her wakeful eyes and fevered brow. She arose 
early and endeavoured to efiace with copious ablu- 
tions the traces of her tears. 

“ I will bathe my soul in music,” said she, “ and 
see if I can find balm in the heavenly ablution.-” 
She sought the piano and began a morning hymn 
of praise which Mrs. Worth loved to hear. “His 
mother’s wakening ear will hear, and perhaps bless 
the sounds.” 

Did she mean Homer or Edmund’s mother? 


282 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


Sweet and solemn her voice rose, and sad, too, 
though it was a hymn of adoration and praise : 

“Lord, in the morning thou shalt hear 
My voice ascending high ; 

To thee will I address my prayer, 

To thee lift up mine eye.” 

“ Victorine !” uttered a deep-toned voice. It 
was the voice of Homer, and she knew that a scene 
of passion and strife awaited her. 

“ Is your soul tuned to harmony this morning, 
Homer ?” asked she, looking up with a smile. It 
was a forced one, and vanished when her eye met 
his. 

“ You meet me in mockery, Victorine,” said he, 
“ but there is not one chord in my spirit that can 
respond to music or mirth. I should think your 
conduct of yesterday might produce by this time 
some serious reflections.” 

“What conduct? If you mean my going un- 
accompanied by yourself, reflection only confirms 
me in the propriety of the step. You do not, can- 
not, blame me now, Homer, for doing what every 
other person in the world would have done in my 
situation — what any other person but yourself 
would have wished me to have done. You do 
blame me still. I have done you more than justice. 


f 

AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 283 

I thought you selfish from passion. I find you so 
from principle.” 

“Ever ready to justify yourself, Yictorine — 
ever ready to throw censure on me. I was not 
about to allude, at this moment, to the circum- 
stances of your choosing a party of pleasure in 
preference to showing by a trifling sacrifice your 
regard to my happiness. I could have forgiven 
that ; I did, so far as to ride forth to meet you, weary 
as I was, resolved to greet you in the spirit of rec- 
onciliation. But you drew coldly back as I ap- 
proached, as if something evil were crossing your 
path. No wonder you drew back in conscious 
guilt, when you knew how you had spent the hours 
since we parted. How glaring must have been 
your conduct, since even childhood made it a mat- 
ter of animadversion ! What did my innocent 
sister say? Good heavens! how calmly I am 
speaking, when her every word is blistered on my 
brain !” 

“ I’m weary — oh, so weary, of this strife,” cried 
Victorine, clasping her hands passionately together, 
“ that I am tempted to make a solemn vow that 
this shall be the last time we shall ever meet. Yet 
once again, in pity to your misery, I will explain 
those blistering words. Knowing your unhappy 


284 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


suspicions, Edmund and myself mutually avoided 
each other. In coming down the mountain I even 
solicited the arm of Frank, because my heart told 
me you would thank me for the choice. Before we 
left the cave I became so absorbed in sad medita- 
tions, caused alone by you, that I knew not when 
my companions left me. Edmund was the last, 
and because he was not cruel enough to suffer me 
to come down those rough rocks unsupported and 
alone, you upbraid me as a criminal guilty of some 
ignominious deed. Oh, Homer, you are not worthy 
of such a noble, generous brother. You do not 
know the heart you believe capable of such injury 
to you.” 

“ Every word you have uttered,” continued he, 
with increasing vehemence, “has only added ten- 
fold weight to my suspicions. I did not ask for 
an explanation ; I knew there was none to be 
given. Do not add duplicity to your already 
broken faith. Do not go on coolly and deliberately 
playing with my credulity and mocking me with 
protestations of regard. The torture inflicted in 
ancient days of suffering water to fall drop by drop 
till it perforated the living brain and bared the 
secret place of thought could not have been com- 
pared to this. Yictorine, why do you attempt to 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


285 


deceive me in this manner? You do not love me; 
you never have loved me.” 

"I have loved you, Homer,” cried she, with 
more sorrow than anger in her voice and manner — 
“I have loved you as you never will be loved 
again. Hear me calmly for one moment, and then 
I am willing to be silent for ever. When I first 
discovered the influence I had gained over your 
heart, my pride exulted in the thought that the eye 
that looked so coldly and darkly on all the world 
softened at the beams of mine, that the bosom shut 
to every ^svteet affection opened involuntarily to 
embrace my image. Then tender feeling dawned, 
and my eyes, which had hitherto glanced sportively 
on all around, learned to soften at the beams of 
yours. My heart unfolded to receive your image \ 
and enshrine it as a sacred trust. The gloom of 
your character, at which I once flung the random 
shafts of ridicule, assumed a grandeur in my sight, 
since I found it resulted from a depth of feeling 
which no common mind could fathom. Yes, Ho- 
mer,” continued Victorine, with indescribable grace 
and dignity, her language rising into that meta- 
phorical strain in which strong passion uncon- 
sciously indulges, “I looked upon you as one of 
those ruins round which genius and feeling love to 


286 AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 

linger, where the moonlight shines lovelier from 
the very darkness of the shadows and the ivy 
blooms brighter from the dampness of its broken 
walls. But since I find you capable of the most 
degrading suspicions and cruel injustice, since I 
see you persisting in a course of conduct as debas- 
ing to yourself as it is harrowing to me, destroying 
the peace of your brother and wearing out my 
existence with your causeless, unnatural jealousy, 
setting aside manliness and reason and truth, — I 
tell thee, Homer, and I tell thee calmly, I would 
as soon take the lightning’s chain and bind it round 
my breast for warmth as trust for happiness in 
such love as you can offer me.” 

“Then you reject me for ever!” cried he, his 
quivering lips turning as pale as clay. 

At this moment, which might be the crisis of his 
fate, the door was opened and Edmund stood be- 
fore them. He was not aware of the interview on 
which he was intruding, and as soon as he dis- 
covered in whose presence he was he turned to 
leave the apartment. 

“Stay,” cried Homer, his blood boiling in his 
veins from the fire of his passion — “stay, brother 
that was, traitor that is. The time is come when 
we must understand each other. Where is the vow 


AUNT FATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


287 


you made before the God of heaven that you would 
never be my rival in fame, fortune or love? 
Fame — I care not for its breath; fortune — you 
have already secured ; and love — all that I treas- 
ured, all that I lived for, you have stolen from me, 
basely, insidiously, like the midnight robber who 
wraps himself in darkness as a thick veil. Look 
me in the face, if you dare, and tell me that your 
vow is not broken.” ' 

u Broken in spirit, but not in deed,” cried Ed- 
mund, recoiling from the frenzied glance of Homer. 
“ I told you that I was human, that I had strong 
passions, and that it was only in the strength of 
God that I wrestled with them. I have never at- 
tempted to rival you. Victorine knows that I have 
not. I have treated her as the stranger within our 
gates, not the friend of my childhood. I have done 
what I can do no more. I cannot stay. The world 
henceforth shall be my home. I leave everything 
to you — mother, sisters, Yictorine and home. I 
am willing my very name should be blotted from 
remembrance, provided such oblivion could pur- 
chase tranquillity for you.” 

“ No, no, Edmund,” cried Yictorine ; “ leave me 
not to him. My decision is made. I shall return 
to my native clime and bury in the walls of a con- 


288 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP- BAG. 


vent every youthful hope. Homer, if you had fifty 
thousand brothers, and banished them all for my sake, 
it would be in vain ; I never could be your wife.” 

Edmund gazed upon Victorine as slowly and 
sadly but firmly she uttered these emphatic words. 
They were not the breathings of passion, but the 
expression of an unalterable will. Her eyes, in 
conclusion, were lifted toward heaven, her hands 
were clasped tightly over her breast. The idea that 
she was free, that, though lost to him, he was not 
doomed to love her as the wife of his brother, filled 
him with a momentary joy too strong to be re- 
pressed. The emotions which he had so long 
struggled to subdue rushed for one instant un- 
checked through his veins, burned on his cheek 
and flashed from his eyes. Homer marked this 
sudden bursting of light and flame, and he marked, 
too, a sudden simultaneous illumination of Vic- 
torine’s late pale and passionless face. A blindness 
came over his eyes, a cold, clammy sweat covered 
his brow. He felt as if he had burning coals eating 
into his naked heart, as if all life and warmth had 
concentrated in that one spot in a consuming blaze, 
and that Edmund had kindled it from the fires of 
hell. 

“ If never mine, not Edmund’s !” exclaimed he, 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 


289 


rushing toward Edmund with the fury of a mad- 
man. Yictorine threw herself on his arm with a 
cry so wild and piercing that it penetrated to the 
remotest chamber of the homestead, but it was too 
late. The blow descended, and Edmund, thrown 
violently against the marble corner of the mantel- 
piece, lay prostrate beneath his brother’s fratricidal 
hand. 

What a scene met the gaze of those who, roused 
by that wild cry of agony, ran in terror to the spot ! 
Stretched on the floor, still and white as a corpse, 
was the lifeless body of Edmund, his head resting 
on the marble slabs of the hearth, which were 
splashed with the blood-drops that gushed from his 
temples. And recliiting over him, as white and al- 
most as lifeless, lay Yictorine, her long hair sweep- 
ing over his breast and dabbling in his blood, and 
her arms clasping him in a stiffening fold. Stand- 
ing over this death-like pair, still, dark and terri- 
ble as Cain over the body of his martyred brother, 
still as if transformed to stone by some avenging 
power, towered the stately form of Homer. 

It were a vain attempt to describe the anguish 
and horror that filled the household. Sorrow had 
once before visited that mansion, a sudden, fearful 
messenger, but it was a commissioned angel from 


290 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


on high, and the most rebellious will soon learn 
to bow to the mandate of God. But man had 
wrought this deed — a son, a brother. Strange that 
that fond mother’s heart did not break at once! 
Strange that those loving, gentle sisters could gaze 
on such a sight and live ! But it is astonishing 
what a weight of woe the human heart can bear 
without being crushed. The first distinct sounds 
which were heard amidst shrieks and incoherent 
cries were uttered by Mr. Selwyn, who alone re- 
tained sufficient self-possession to think and to act. 
“ Bathe her temples, give her water and air,” cried 
he, lifting Victorine from the bosom of Edmund 
and bearing her to a sofa ; then without waiting to 
see who obeyed his command, he knelt down by his 
adopted son, raised his bleeding head on his arm 
and laid his hand beneath the folds of his vest. 
“ Great God !” he ejaculated, “ there is life — a faint 
pulsation in his heart. Haste for the physician, 
quick ! Bring bandages, lint, anything to stop this 
blood from flowing. Water ! for God’s sake give 
me water, or he dies.” 

The moment Mr. Selwyn .exclaimed, u Great God ! 
there is life,” Homer burst into a loud, convulsive 
laugh, then fell back into the arms of Frank and 
Vivian, who both sprang forward to receive him. 



descended, and Edmund, thrown violently against the marble corner of the 
mantle-piece, lay prostrate beneath his brother’s fratricidal hand, with Vic- 
torine, white and almost lifeless, reclining over him .” — Page 289. 




AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


291 


They bore him from the apartment, but even after 
the door was closed the echo of that same convul- 
sive laugh was heard again and again, more terrible 
a thousand times than the wailings of grief. 

Edmund indeed lived, but the violence of the 
blow and fall had produced a concussion of the 
brain, and his life was suspended on so slender a 
hope it was scarcely felt in the iron grasp of de- 
spair which had hold of their hearts. 

The sun went down that night on a house of 
grief, but all was still as death save the chamber 
where Homer lay tossing in delirious agony, now 
tearing the bandages from his arms, where the 
veins had been opened to give vent to the hot, 
feverish blood, and now calling for water to quench 
the fire in his heart and his brain. Victorine had 
fallen from one fainting fit into another, till at 
length she suhk into a stupor so deep it might have 
been taken for the slumber of the grave. The sis- 
ters, prohibited the chamber of their brothers, sat 
by the couch of Victorine, holding her pallid 
hands and bathing them with their tears. Some- 
times the sound of a softly-opening door, a cautious 
tread on the stairs, made their pulses stop and their 
blood curdle. It might be the messenger of death 
approaching, and they feared to look into each 
18 


292 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


other’s face. Sometimes, too, the ravings of Ho- 
mer catne like the fitful moanings of an autumn 
wind on the hush of the midnight hour. Only the 
night before they had lain in each other’s arms, too 
full of blissful hopes to slumber, and now the same 
stars that smiled so benignantly upon them seemed 
to look down with pale, mournful lustre on their 
sad vigils. 

All night the mother leaned over the bed of 
Edmund, watching his death-white face and count- 
ing the beatings of his feeble pulse. Good Doctor 
Leyton, the old family physician, whom they all 
loved next to their minister, never left them, but 
went from room to room administering comfort, if 
not relief. Mr. Selwyn’s principal station was by 
the side of Homer, but he often stole in to gaze on 
the marble features of Edmund, and to whisper in 
the mother’s ear tidings of the unhappy Homer. 
And whose are those venerable forms seated side 
by side in the gloom of that silent, shaded room ? 
How came they there, those old, trembling, silver- 
haired ones, to share the night-watch which they 
cannot relieve? How awful is their appearance 
there in the midst of the stillness and grief! — a 
link between the past and the present, the living 
and the dead ! 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


293 


The aged dwellers of the little cottage had tot- 
tered over as soon as the tidings had reached their 
ears, and they would not be constrained to depart 
until morning. Of all the family of their benefac- 
tress none was so beloved as Edmund, and the old 
ladies wept and prayed God that he might live, 
even if he should require their lives in his stead. 
Softly the octogenarian murmured the language of 
Scripture with which her memory was stored, and 
it stole on the ear like the voice of prophecy, so 
solemn and slow were the accents. It was well 
poor old Aunt Patty could not leave her apartment, 
for she, too, would have claimed a place by the pil- 
low of Edmund, and age has an authority which 
was never disputed in the family of Mrs. Worth. 
Estelle was forbidden to quit her, and the child 
found consolation in pouring out her sorrows in 
Aunt Patty’s sympathizing ear. 

Day passed after day, and still the muffled 
knocker and the darkened window and the mourn- 
ful countenances showed that the fear of death hung 
over the house. It was true, Victorine had risen, 
and was seen hovering like a pale ghost round the 
bed of Edmund, but Edmund still lay with closed 
eyes and speechless lips, and Homer, though his 
ravings had subsided, languished under a burning 


294 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


fever brought on by the fierceness and violence of 
passion. 

The third night, as the mother hung over her 
second-born, the long-sealed lids slowly unclosed, 
and the soul, awakened from its trance, looked fee- 
bly forth from the dim eyes. She did not speak, 
but laid her hand gently on his brow. A dewy 
moisture met her touch, and the pale lips parted 
with a perceptible motion. Again the eyes closed, 
and the faint regular breathings of slumber stole 


on her ear. On her knees she watched that slum- 
ber, and Victorine knelt at her side, for they knew 
that sleep was the crisis of his fate ; it would either 
bear him softly over the billows of death or bring 
healing on its downy wings. 

“ Mother, ” murmured a faint voice, and Mrs. 
Worth knew that God had given her son back to 
her arms; “ Victorine.” The mother and the 
Victorine thus faintly addressed attempted not to 
answer, but, on their knees as they were, they fell 
on each other’s neck and wept and sobbed as if 
Edmund had just breathed his last. “ My brother ?” 
again sighed Edmund; “my unhappy brother?” 

“He lives, my son,” said Mrs. Worth, laying 
her hand on Edmund’s pallid lips; “but speak 
not, move not. O my God, I thank thee!” 


A UNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 295 

She felt the faint pressure of those pallid lips on 
her hand, and his eyes, raised to heaven, seemed to 
echo the grateful ejaculation, “ O my God, I thank 
thee !” 

And now Edmund’s only danger was in being 
killed by too much kindness by his tender nurses. 
But had they forsaken Homer? Did no mother 
or sister tend his feverish couch and minister to his 
disease ? Ah ! when did a mother ever forget her 
first-born? — at least such a mother as Homer’s ? 
When did passion ever estrange or crime alienate 
the mother from her son, the child of her prayers, 
her hopes and her tears? During his wild par- 
oxysms. he would allow no one to be near him but 
Mr. Selwyn, Frank and Vivian, who kept watch 
by him day and night, and it often required their 
united strength to master him in his struggles, but 
when the fever left him, he was weak as an infant, 
and as easily subdued. Though his delirious mad- 
ness was over, his mind still wandered, and the 
doctor began to fear a permanent alienation of the 
intellect, though he did not express his apprehen- 
sions, for he did not wish' to add to the already too 
great suffering. 

Once, as Mrs. Worth sat by Homer, she noticed 
a sudden change in his countenance. He gazed long 


296 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


and mournfully on her, and then said in a low 
voice, “ Have you not cursed me ?” 

“ Curse my son?” she cried. “Oh, Homer, I 
have wept over you and prayed over you when 
you knew me not, and now, Homer — yes, even 
now, my first-born — a mother’s blessing may be 
yours, if you will not cast it from you. Your 
brother lives, and forgives you as freely as he hopes 
to be forgiven by his God.” 

“ My brother forgives me !” repeated he, in in- 
describable emotion, “ and you, have you one 
blessing left for me, even for me, O my mother? 
— me, the second Cain ?” 

He drew the covering over his face, and the bed 
shook with the throes of his agony. Gently and 
soothingly she bent over and whispered in his ear 
words of heavenly consolation. She told him of 
the prodigal who, returning in shame and remorse 
to his father’s mansion, was welcomed with the em- 
braces of love; of the abounding joy in heaven 
over the repenting sinner ; of the promise given to 
the broken and contrite heart that the high and 
holy One which inhabiteth eternity should de- 
scend and make his dwelling there. Holy were the 
lessons taught on that bed of sickness. The stub- 
born glebe of the sinner’s heart was broken by the 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


297 


ploughshare of the Almighty, and, watered by pen- 
itential showers, it might yet yield a harvest of 
golden fruit. 

At length the brothers met once more. Homer, 
weak and languid, reclined upon a sofa supported 
by the arm of his mother. Edmund, whose re- 
covery had been more rapid, came in leaning on 
Mr. Selwyn, who fain would have retarded the 
interview. But Edmund yearned to pour the balm 
of forgiveness into the goaded bosom of Homer, 
and the first effort of returning strength led him 
to his side. Homer’s head was pillowed on his 
mother’s shoulder. His raven hair hung damp 
and thick over his pale brow, shading his sunken 
eyes. His features were in deep repose, the work- 
ings of passion having settled down into an expres- 
sion of profound melancholy. But though the strife 
seemed over and the battle won, the scars of a 
wounded spirit were imprinted on his face. The 
lightning leaves its scathing mark, fire, flood and 
storm their blasting traces, but the lightning and 
storm of passion leave deeper and more blasting 
traces on the soul. Edmund, pale and agitated, 
approached his brother, and the next moment they 
were weeping in each other’s arms, while the arms 
of a mother enfolded them both. 


298 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


Mr. Selwyn withdrew. He felt it was a scene 
which should be sacred from all intrusion — that 
even the eye of friendship should not invade its 
hallowed bounds. 

u How much you have suffered, my brother !” 
exclaimed Edmund, gazing with anguish on Ho- 
mer’s altered features ; “ but God has been merci- 
ful to us both. Let us commence anew a life of 
gratitude and love.” 

“If I could die this moment,” cried Homer, “ I 
should be happy — happy in the consciousness of 
your forgiveness and hoping in the mercy of God. 
But I dread to return to the world. I dread the 
resurrection of my bosom enemy.” 

“ No ; it will never rise again,” said Edmund ; 
“ I renounce the fatal passion which has destroyed 
<*ur peace. Had I been true in spirit to the vow I 
made, this evil never had befallen us. We have 
both been tempted, and both have sinned.” 

“ Hear me, Edmund,” cried Homer, raising his 
head and lifting his joined hands to heaven, “ while 
I declare, as in the presence of omnipotent Truth, 
that the thought of Yictorine shall never again 
come betwixt thee and me. She has renounced 
me, and I here resign all claim upon her affections 
or her faith. I absolve you from a promise made 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


299 


to a madman. As a rational being I have no right 
to exact it. Be happy with each other, and let no 
remembrance of me darken . your felicity. If I live, 
I will gather up the energies of my soul and labour 
henceforth for immortality. No, not for immor- 
tality, but eternity. But something tells me here / 7 
added he, pressing his hand heavily on his breast, 
“ that I am destined to an early grave. The flame 
of life has been burning too intensely to last. My 
youth is consumed like the grass of the field when 
the breath of fire passeth over it. Weep not, my 
mother, my long-suffering, blessed mother. The 
sleep of the grave will be sweet to me. No storm 
of passion will disturb that long repose. No scorch- 
ing jealousy be felt in that cold bed. All will be 
peace there, my brother.” 

Edmund pressed his hand, incapable of utter- 
ance. The love he felt for Victorine seemed a 
faint emotion compared to what he experienced 
at this moment for Homer. He would willingly 
purchase his brother’s life at the sacrifice of his 
own. He would never erect his happiness on 
the ruins of his brother’s. He would emulate 
his generosity. 

The brothers moved again in the family circle, 
but Homer was the shadow of his former self. His 


300 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


lofty figure drooped ; the lustre of his lamp-bright 
eyes waxed dim. The haughty spirit which once 
sat enthroned in those brilliant eyes was become 
gentle as a weaned child, and could be led by 
a silken thread. His mother watched him with 
heartbreaking tenderness. Of all her children he 
had called forth the greatest intensity of feeling. 
She had loved him with fear and trembling. The 
fear that he would forfeit the affection of all others 
only bound him closer to her heart. Whatever he 
had been to the rest of the world, he had always 
been gentle and affectionate to her. And now, 
when he was gentle and affectionate to all, and 
household love followed his steps and hung upon 
his looks with ever-increasing devotion, when the 
. lost link in the family chain was restored in golden 
lustre, must the chain be broken by death ? Must 
the prodigal so lately received into the bosom of 
an earthly home be called so soon to his Father’s 
mansions in the skies? “Even so, Father,” re- 
plied the Christian parent, “ if it seemeth good in 
thy sight. The cup which thou givest me, shall I 
not drain it, even to the bitterest dregs of sorrow ? 
One loved one is gone before me — another is tread- 
ing the shadowy pa]th. The way through the dark 
valley is beaten, and when I travel through it, it 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 


301 


will be sweet to know that I am treading in the 
steps of my husband and my son.” 

As her fears strengthened, so did the hopes of 
others. They saw his eye become brighter, and a 
bright flush on his cheek came and went like a 
herald of returning health. “ He is better,” they 
would say, “ oh how much better ! He will soon 
be well, and we shall be happy together once 
more.” 

Edmund and Victorine never talked of happi- 
ness. The thought could not be associated with 
Homer, and consequently was rejected’ by them. 

One evening Mrs. Worth was summoned to the 
dying bed of old Lady Graves, who had never been 
well since the night she sat by Edmund, believing 
the angel of death had come to bear him away. 
The shock was too much for her aged frame, and 
she was about to be gathered to her fathers. She 
wanted to see the children of her benefactress, 
“her princely boy” most of all, he whose danger 
had hastened her to the tomb. 

“ I am going ” said the aged Christian, holding 
out her cold, trembling hand— “ I am going the way 
of all the earth. My soul rejoices to lay down the 
burden of nearly a hundred years. The Lord has 
been exceedingly gracious unto me,” continued she, 


302 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 


gazing dimly up in the fair, sad faces that bent 
over the couch, “ and sent you all to comfort the 
poor and the needy, to uphold the aged and infirm, 
to be lamps to my feet and guides to my path. 
Come nearer and let me lay my hand in blessing 
on you before I go hence and am no more seen for 
ever.” Solemnly the dying saint laid her palsied 
hand on each head bowed in reverence befbre her. 
It lingered a moment on Bessy’s, and her fingers 
slowly threaded the labyrinth of her golden tresses. 
“ Are. these the strings of the golden harp of the 
clierubims?” she murmured, her senses wandering; 
“ they are all stirring with music. I stand upon a 
sea of glass, and I shall sing the song of Moses 
and the Lamb. Great and marvellous are thy 
works, Lord God almighty! Just and true are 
all thy ways, O thou King of saints !” 

Her eyes closed, and she lay so still they thought 
her spirit had passed, when, suddenly opening them, 
she spoke with a stronger voice, and a spark 
gleamed in her eyes from life’s decaying embers. 

u I have had a dream,” she cried, gazing fixedly 
at Mrs. Worth. “ The angel of the Lord came 
down to me and told me he had a message for you. 
I am going to have company in the grave to-night. 
The aged and the young shall lie side by side, and 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG . 303 

rise together in the resurrection morn. The Mas- 
ter will come and knock at your door. The young 
man will rise at the call. Keep him not back, for 
the Master is waiting. He*s waiting for him and 
for me.” 

As Mrs. Worth and her children listened to the 
prophetic voice which pronounced the doom of 
death on their house, a cold chill ran through their 
veins. It was true her mind had been dwelling 
lately on the dark scenes which had transpired at 
the homestead, and it was natural their remem- 
brance should blend with her dying dreams. 

Bessy, whose early faith in dreams had left a 
shade of superstition on her imagination, clung 
pale and tearful to the arm of Edmund and en- 
treated him to return, and Mrs. Worth impul- 
sively sought to release her hand from the cold 
fingers that closed round it. But reason soon mas- 
tered impulse, and she would not forsake the dy- 
ing for the terrors of a feverish dream. 

u What will become of my poor daughter,” said 
the old lady, the throb of nature wakening in her 
heart, u alone, alone — all alone in the world? 
Poor Eunice ! but the Lord will take care of her. 
I have never seen the righteous forsaken, nor their 
seed begging their bread.” 


304 


AUMT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


“ I will take care of her,” said Mrs. Worth. “I 
will take her home and make her last days com- 
fortable.” 

“ Bless you, bless you !” murmured the aged 

mother ; “ Eunice will soon come to me. Turn the 

/ ' 

hour-glass ; the sand is all run out.” The last sand 
of life glided away with these words ; the weary 
pilgrim was at rest. 

Mrs. Worth closed the sunken eyes, smoothed 
the white locks over the placid brow and saw the 
stillness of everlasting rest gradually steal over 
every care-worn feature. “Rest to thee, weary 
pilgrim,” mused her saddened soul ; “ thy goal is 
won. Thou hast dropped thy staff of age for the 
strength of immortal youth. Thou hast exchanged 
thy lowly cabin for a house not made with hands, 
eternal in the heavens. Death had no terrors for 
thee, aged Christian ; thou hast long waited for 
him with a smile, and chided his long delay. But 
when he comes to the young — Ah me ! that awful 
dream !” Again a cold shudder ran through her 
veins. It was nothing but a dream, the last 
strong impression of life reflected from a broken 
mirror, yet there was something in her great age 
associated with the solemnities of a dying hour that 
invested her words with the grandeur of prophecy, 


I 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 305 

and the visions of the expiring saint have some- 
times been strangely realized. Might not the light 
of futurity gleam through the loopholes of life’s 
ruined walls, and the shadows of earth as well as 
the glories of heaven break in on the soul ? 

While this solemn scene was passing in the cot- 
tage, Homer was reclining languidly on a sofa lis- 
tening to the strains which had always a soothing 
influence over him, even in his darkest hours. He 
had expressed a wish for music, and Victorine sang 
some of the songs he used to love. She remained 
while the others attended the bed of the dying. 
She shrunk from the sight of death, and she was 
engaged in a duty to the living, sweet, though 
mournful to her soul. She could not refuse a re- 
quest of Homer’s, gentle and unexacting as he now 
was, and her voice, catching the keynote from her 
feelings, made such thrilling melody that the eyes 
of the invalid glistened with emotion. The lamp 
was removed into the shadow of the chimney, so 
that the rays of the moon, which streamed through 
the casement, were seen in their full lustre; they 
reflected the window-sashes and the softly-waving 
trees on the carpet, partially illuminated the figure 
of Victorine and encircled with a halo of silvery 


306 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


glory the reclining brow of Homer. The soft 
stillness of the moonlit hour, the melancholy sweet- 
ness of the minstrelsy, the deep tranquillity of na- 
ture, all harmonized, and there was music in the 
beating of the hearts which kept time with the 
vesper hymn. 

“ Let me die listening to a strain like that,” said 
> Homer, in a low voice, as Victorine paused and 
leaned silently over the instrument. “ Music is to 
me the breath of the Deity. It flows into my soul 
and diffuses a divine glow and warmth that I can- 
not express. It creates an unutterable longing for 
celestial communion. It comes with tidings from 
the invisible world, and goes with the sighs of earth 
for the intercourse of angels.” He looked stead- 
fastly at the moon, slowly, serenely gliding on her 
cerulean sea, then turned to Victorine with a deep 
sigh : “ What a contrast to this peaceful scene has 
been my short and troubled life! But now my 
, soul is in harmony with the calm spirit of the uni- 
verse. I cannot describe the joy there is in this 
hush of the passions after a day of tempests, this 
subsiding of the stormy billows. Oh, Victorine, 
when I think of the anguish I have caused you and 
all I love, how I have perverted the gifts of God 
and turned his richest blessings into curses, I am 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 307 

ready to exclaim, ‘ It is better that I die than live/ 
And still that ejaculation is mine; now that the 
bitterness of remorse is past, and the consciousness 
of forgiveness from God and man has healed the 
wounds of a guilty conscience, I still exclaim, ‘ It 
is better that I die than live/ You would never 
be happy with Edmund while you feared that your 
happiness might be my misery. You would both 
sacrifice yourselves for me. But the blossoms of 
your love may bloom sweetly on my grave, and the 
tear that perchance may fall to my memory will 
not mar their brightness/’ 

“ Do not talk thus,” said the weeping Victorine, 
sitting down by his side and taking his hand in 
hers. " Oh, Homer, what a chill hand is this ! The 
night-air is too cold for you.” 

u Ho ; I do not feel chilled. Do not move. Let 
me sit thus. Perhaps it is the last time I shall 
ever clasp your hand in mine and gaze upon the 
face I have loved with too fond idolatry. I have 
resigned you, Victorine, resigned all earthly things, 
.but at this moment I feel a yearning desire to re- 
call the love which once warmed my life, its re- 
membrance comes to me so like a dream of heaven. 
You once loved me, Victorine?” 

“ I love you still,” cried she, faintly, and bowing 
19 


308 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


her head on his shoulder. “ I have had a divided 
heart. When the dark spell was on you, I was 
alienated from you, and Edmund rivaled you in 
my affections. But now I feel a tide of tender- 
ness rushing over me that almost drowns my spirit. 
Everything is forgotten but the love you have 
borne me, and the sufferings which have expiated 
every wrong.” 

“This is indeed an earnest of heaven, a bliss 
I dreamed not of tasting on earth,” he uttered, 
passing one arm gently round her and pressing his 
cheek on her silken tresses. Victor ine’s head 
drooped lower and lower, till her tears rained on 
his breast. A soft, fleeting cloud floated over the 
face of the moon, and the night gale sighed through 
the lattice. Nature sympathized with love and sor- 
row, and wrapped them in her shadow as with a veil. 

Gradually the arm which clasped Victorine 
relaxed its hold, and she felt a quick shudder run 
through the bosom on which her cheek was pil- 
lowed. She raised her head, and the cloud rolling 
back from the moon, she saw that his face was 
deadly pale. “Speak, Homer,” cried she; “you 
are ill — you are faint. Merciful heavens! he 
cannot speak ! — V i vian — Frank — haste — haste — 
he dies !” 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


309 


The young men, who were lingering in the 
piazza watching for the sisters’ return, heard the 
agonized call of Victorine, and rushed to her assist- 
ance. 

“ It is only a fainting fit,” cried Frank, trying 
to speak with composure ; “ he will soon revive.” 
He loosened his vest and bathed his temples with 
the water which Vivian brought. Victorine knelt 
by him and chafed his chill hands in hers, call- 
ing upon him in the most impassioned manner to 
speak and tell her that he lived. 

“ I live,” he murmured ; “ I shall live for ever.” 

His mother and Bessy, who had hastened on in 
advance of the rest, now entered the room, and 
beheld what they believed the fulfillment of the 
prophetic dream. 

“O my God!” cried Bessy, clinging to her 
mother. “The Master is come! I hear him 
knocking at the door !” 

Mrs. Worth bent calmly over her son and laid 
her cheek to his. A supernatural strength girded 
her heart; she felt ready to travel with him through 
the “ valley of the shadow of death,” and she feared 
no evil. 

“ How is it with thee, my son ? Did the sum- 
mons find thee ready ?” 


310 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


“ All is peace here, my mother,” said he, laying 
his hand on his heart, and his face looked to her 
as the face of an angel, so unearthly was its 
expression in that pale, silvery light. 

Doctor Leyton, who had been immediately sum- 
moned, said a blood-vessel in the heart had been 
suddenly ruptured, and that the skill of man 
availed nothing in such a case. 

“ Move me not,” said the dying youth as they 
attempted to bear him to a couch. “ Let me lie 
here in this blessed light. Let it gild the shadows 
of death. Edmund, I see thee not.” 

“ I am here, my brother,” cried he, kneeling by 
the side of Victorine, “but oh, Homer, I cannot 
be parted from thee.” 

“ The living must part, but the dead will meet,” 
was the low, solemn response. “ Hinder me not,” 
continued he, in a fainter tone ; “ my Saviour chides 
my delay. Behold, he stands at the door and 
knocks. His head is wet with dew, and his locks 
are heavy with the drops of night.” 

He lay silent for a few moments, breathing with 
difficulty and pain, on the bosom of his mother. 
Pale but tearless, she supported him in her arms, 
wiping the death-damps from his brow and press- 
ing her lips on its marble surface. “ The arms of 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


311 


a mother enfold thee, my first-born,” murmured 
she, “ and would bear thee safely over the gulf 
of death. But the arms of a Saviour are kinder 
than mine, and to him, in faith, I yield thee. I 
am laying up my treasures in heaven ; by and by I 
shall seek them there.” 

Her voice ceased, though her lips continued to 
move, and nothing was heard but the sobbings of 
grief, save the breathing which became shorter and 
shorter. A slight convulsion passed over the fea- 
tures of the dying youth. “ Victorine,” cried he, 
wildly, “why hast thou left me? You promised 
in death to be mine.” 

These were the last words that ever passed the 
lips of Homer. His head sunk heavily on the 
maternal bosom. The victim of misguided passion 
was no more. 

Calm be thy rest, thou tempest-tost and weary ! 
Thou hast said that the sleep of the grave would 
be sweet. The grassy covering that will wrap thy 
clay shall be kept green by the tears of affection, 
and thy errors be remembered only to forgive. 

“For oh how softly do the tints return 
Of every virtue sleeping in the urn ! 

Frailties are buried there, or, if they live, 
Remembrance only wakes them to forgive.” 


CHAPTER XI. 


CONCLUSION. 



HE pale leaves of autumn strewed the grave 


-J- of Homer, the snows of winter covered it as 
with a shroud and the flowers of spring began to 
shed their bloom and sweetness there. Time had 
softened the bitterness of grief, and hope and love 
once more sprang up in the hearts of the young 
dwellers of the homestead. It was hope, however, 
chastened by experience, and love made holier by 
past sorrow. Edmund, who was now “the only 
son of his mother,” refused to leave her for more 
brilliant prospects in a foreign land. “My father 
and elder brother are gone,” said he; “a sacred 
duty devolves on me, and may God only bless me 
as I prove worthy of the trust !” 

Mr. Selwyn did not attempt to shake this filial 
resolution, but his own duties were pressing, and he 
was obliged to hasten his departure, already too long 
deferred. But though he consented to leave his 
adopted son, he was not to depart alone. He was 


( 312 ) 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 313 

to bear a young bride from the homestead, and 
Bessy, too, as the bride of Vivian, was to accom- 
pany him whom, having revered so long as a second 
father, she thought it almost impossible she could 
ever address by the more familiar name of brother. 

The last scenes described in this family history 
have been of a dark and gloomy character. We 
now gladly turn to one where sunshine again illu- 
mines the landscape of life. We have taken them 
as Aunt Patty did the pieces from her scrap-bog , a 
shred of black and of white, or of variegated dyes, 
the relic of a wedding dress or a shroud, just as it 
happened, for as Aunt Patty herself remarked: 
“ Life is nothing but a large piece of patchwork. 
Though the separate parts may be ever so different, 
put them all together and they make a beautiful 
whole. For they are all fixed by the hand of the 
Almighty, and his works are all ordered aright.” 

The double wedding was as unostentatious as 
possible, for the family did not wish to blend bri- 
dal festivities with the weeds of mourning. The 
sisters exchanged their sable dresses for robes of 
virgin white, but they wore no other decoration. 
They needed none ; they were clothed in the beauty 
of innocence and youth and love. 


314 


AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 


Vivian would have thought his happiness in- 
complete unless shared by his generous and warm- 
hearted friend, Frank Wharton. But Bessy could 
not regret the absence of the treacherous Laura, 
though she lamented the rashness and folly which 
had lately made her an alien from her maternal 
home. Laura, vain and unprincipled, had long 
looked with envy on the lovely sisters, whom she 
tried to believe inferior to herself, and whose pros- 
perity tinctured with wormwood bitterness the 
blessings bestowed on herself. Resolved to take 
precedence of them in marriage, and foolishly hop- 
ing to mortify them by the act, she eloped with a 
showy adventurer whose addresses her mother had 
forbidden her to accept — a heartless libertine, a 
reckless gambler whose wages of sin were squan- 
dered as soon as they were won. Laura’s hour for 
reflection came too late for her happiness, but not, 
we trust, for her reformation. 

Aunt Patty, who had not left her little chamber 
for more than two years, was carried down stairs 
to witness the ceremony, and old Lady Paine, who 
was now an inmate of the family, laid aside her 
distaff and wheel and sat in the family circle. 
The only ornaments of the room added for the oc- 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


315 


casion were garlands of flowers which Estelle and 
Frank had woven, and the picture of Bessy which 
looked down from the walls like the guardian an- 
gel of the household. But fair as the picture was, 
Bessy was still fairer, and Frank, though he had 
magnanimously given her to his rival and endeav- 
ored to stifle every warmer feeling than broth- 
erly regard, could not help wishing that Vivian 
had never risen, a radiant star, on the horizon of 
her young imagination, and extinguished so com- 
pletely his lesser light. His eye turned from Bessy 
to the pensive and dark-haired Victorine, whose 
once resplendent countenance was now softened by 
an expression of melancholy and resignation ex- 
ceedingly touching in one so young and beautiful. 
He thought of the buried Homer in his sad and 
lonely grave, and a cloud passed over his sunny 
face. The memory of the dead comes with double 
solemnity in the hour of bridal joy. 

Let us hear what Aunt Patty says of the wed- 
ding to her neighbour old Lady Payne, forgetting 
that she cannot hear the low, confidential tone she 
thinks it proper to assume : 

“It does not seem more than a year or so since 
my niece Emma, Mrs. Worth that is, stood up to 
be married, and Parson Broomfield said that they 


316 


ATJNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


were the handsomest couple that he ever joined 
together. And now her two daughters are old 
enough to be brides themselves, beautiful creatures 
like their mother. Bessy, I must say, is even 
handsomer than her mother was, but she don’t 
look as if she was made of the same flesh and 
blood as other folks. I never saw anybody that 
did look just like her. I think, now she’s big 
enough to be married, she might perhaps comb 
her hair out straight, though it would be a pity to 
spoil those pretty ringlets that look so like sun- 
beams on her cheek and neck. I don’t wonder 
Mr. Vivian looks at her as if he loved her so. 
Who could help it? Well, I always thought she 
and Frank would make a match, but the Almighty 
fixed it another way.” 

Aunt Patty paused to take a pinch of snuff out 
of a new gold snuff-box presented her that morn- 
ing by Mr. Selwyn. She may be pardoned if she 
did rap it long and loud and find unusual difficulty 
in gathering the snuff in her fingers, for it is no 
wonder she wanted to display such a gift. She 
then continued her soliloquy, as well satisfied as if 
her deaf companion shared her thoughts : 

“ Just to think of Emma, that young thing, mar- 
rying a man old enough to be her father ! He’s a 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


317 


fine, noble-looking man, though, and carries his 
head as high as a prince. And he’s a kind, good 
gentleman, too, for he helped to bring me down 
stairs with his own hands, and then he gave me 
this fine snuff-box of solid gold all marked and 
figured up, a present fit for a queen. Poor Victo- 
rine ! I saw her turn away just now to hide a tear 
that stands in her eye. She’s thinking of Homer, 
but she loves Edmund, for all that. By and by 
there will be another wedding, and it won’t do any 
harm to Homer, for he’s where there are ‘ no more 
marryings and givings in marriage, but where he 
is like the angels of God in heaven.’ I do hope 
and believe he is. What a strange world this is ! 
Everybody loving and marrying! Well, I think 
people who live by themselves are the best off, 
after all, they are so quiet, and then, when the 
Lord calls them away, they don’t leave such a big 
gap behind them.” 

At the close of the evening the scrap bed-quilt 
was produced which had been the admiration of so 
many eyes, and which Aunt Patty had promised to 
the niece who should marry first. She was in a 
dilemma, for both nieces were married at the same 
time. To be sure, Emma was the eldest, but she 


318 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG . 


always thought Bessy would be its owner, and she 
did not like to give up her original opinion. 

“Til tell you what to do, Aunt Patty,” said 
Frank ; “ keep it for Estelle, who is really the 
lawful proprietor, for she made it with her own 
precious little fingers.” 

Both Emma and Bessy sanctioned the decision 
of Frank, which they asserted was dictated by the 
wisdom of Solomon. 

“ I shall never live to see the dear child mar- 
ried,” replied Aunt Patty, shaking her head sor- 
rowfully. “When she wears her bridal robes, I 
shall be wrapped in my shroud, and nobody will 
remember anything about poor old Aunt Patty 
then.” 

“ Don’t talk so, Aunt Patty,” cried Estelle, her 
eyes filling with tears ; “ you know we never can 
forget you. Besides, I never mean to be married. 
Emma and Bessy can’t love mother half as well 
as I do, or they never would be willing to go away 
so far off.” 

“ You will think differently several years hence,” 
said Frank. “ I’ll wait for you myself if you will 
promise to marry me when you are old enough. 
You know how often we have gathered flowers and 
made charades and conundrums together. You 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


319 


will never see anybody you will like as well as 
you do me, Estelle.” 

“ I never expect to,” answered she, with a glow 
of gratitude at the remembrance of his participa- 
tion in her childish pleasures. “ I love you almost 
as well as I do Edmund. But that isn’t the kind 
of love people feel when they marry each other.” 

“What kind is that, Estelle?” asked Frank, 
looking toward the lovely brides. 

“ I don’t know exactly,” replied she, blushing at 
finding herself a poorer metaphysician than she 
thought she was, “ but look at Emma and Bessy 
and Mr. Selwyn and Mr. Vivian, and see how 
different they look at each other from what you 
and I and Aunt Patty do. They take little short 
looks, and a great parcel of them, but we look and 
have done with it.” 

Frank laughed outright. A philosopher could 
hardly have explained better the difference between 
the electric glances of love and the calm gaze of 
friendship. 

When he told Estelle to promise to marry him 
when she was old enough, he only gave utterance 
to a sportive thought. But as he reflected he grew 
serious. He thought what a charming thing it 
would be to be united to a sister of Bessy’s who 


320 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


would be only less beautiful than herself, to make 
the first impression on her young and innocent 
heart, to mould the virgin wax of her juvenile af- 
fections and stamp upon its softened surface the 
image of himself. 

(One sentence in parentheses : Frank did indeed 
wait for Estelle, who, when she became older, 
really supplanted Bessy in the heart of her early 
admirer.) 

And Victorine! Was Aunt Patty a true pro- 
phet? Was the tear in her eye for the buried 
Homer and the smile on her lip for the living Ed- 
mund Z Yes, it was even so. Memory and hope 
met in her heart, and while the shadows of the one 
rolled over its surface, the light of the other tinged 
them with golden lustre. Never since the death of 
Homer had Edmund spoken to her otherwise than 
as a brother might address a sister. They had 
stood together over his grave when the winds of 
autumn strewed the mourning leaves on the earth ; 
they had talked of him by the warmth of the 
winter’s fireside and amidst the sweetness of 
spring’s opening flowers. This night they named 
him not; they spoke of the bridal scene, the 
morrow’s parting and the void that woul 1 be made 


AUNT PATTY’S SCRAP-BAG. 


321 


in the family circle when the newly-married couples 
had left, perhaps never to return. 

“ What shall we do without Emma and Bessy ?” 
said Victorine. “ Oh, desolate will be the dwell- 
ing of Morna,” added she, fixing her dark, melan- 
choly eyes on the pale face of Mrs. Worth. 

“You must be Emma and Bessy in one,” re- 
plied Edmund, “and the dwelling where you re- 
main, Victorine, never can be desolate. My 
mother has no daughter whom she loves better than 
yourself.” 

“And yet I have brought her much sorrow,” 
said Victorine, sadly. “ I fear I was born to cast 
a cloud over all who love me.” 

“A cloud has been resting over us long,” said 
Edmund, in a low voice intended for her ear 
alone, “ but it is in your power to bring back sun- 
shine to our hearts and home.” 

Victorine blushed. The look he bent upon her 
was such as she had met beneath the oak of the 
mountain when passion suddenly rent the veil that 
covered it and revealed its hidden fires. Her heart 
thrilled at the remembrance, but hope, in its tri- 
umph, soon banished memory. 

“ Victorine,” continued Edmund, “ I have loved 
you in sorrow and remorse when I thought to love 


322 AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP-BAG. 

you was a crime. I have loved you in sadness and 
doubt while I looked upon you as bearing in your 
bosom a widowed heart. I love you now in hope 
and faith, and in this scene of wedded happiness 
I dare to look forward to years of joy with you.” 

Victorine tried to answer, but the words died on 
her trembling lips. There was no need, however, 
of her speaking, for, as Aunt Patty often said, 
u Victorine had a tongue in her eyes that told 
everything, whether she willed or no.” To quote 
another of Aunt Patty’s sayings, which were almost 
as celebrated as the proverbs of Solomon : “ The 
Lord had made Edmund and Victorine for each 
other in his own almightiness, and man could 
never keep them apart.” 

The sayings of Aunt Patty are ended — her scrap- 
bag given to the world. 


THE END. 


A-vi — 


H 6 88 












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